In this engaging episode of the Audio Signals Podcast, host Marco Ciappelli dives into a fascinating conversation with retired neurosurgeon and author Gary Simonds, discussing the intersections of neurosurgery, storytelling, and writing fiction.
Guest: Gary Simonds, Author, Professor
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-simonds-5b0225a/
On Twitter | https://x.com/garyrsimonds
Website | https://garyrsimonds.com/
On Mastodon | https://mastodon.social/@GaryRSimonds
On Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/garyrsimonds/
On TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@garyrsimonds
On Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/garyrsimonds/
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast & Audio Signals Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
Gary Simonds, a retired neurosurgeon who continues to teach and write, joined Marco for this episode. He introduced himself and shared a bit about his extensive career in medicine, including thousands of operations and his role in leading neurosurgical programs.
From Neurosurgery to Ghost Stories
Intrigued by Gary's transition from neurosurgery to writing about ghosts, Marco delved into Gary's motivations and experiences. Gary explained that his interest in storytelling emerged from his encounters with patients and their intense, often heart-wrenching stories. Initially intending to write non-fiction, Gary shifted to fiction to make the reading experience more immersive and engaging. His novel explores the idea of a neurosurgeon encountering ghosts and wrestling with the boundaries between the scientific and the supernatural.
Balancing Reality and Fiction
Gary emphasized the importance of grounding his stories in the reality of neurosurgery and patient experiences. While the scientific aspects remained accurate, he wove a narrative that blended these elements with the intriguing concept of ghosts. This approach aimed to keep readers engrossed and thoughtfully questioning the nature of reality and the supernatural.
Teaching Through Stories
Marco and Gary then explored the role of storytelling in education. Gary highlighted how stories captivate students and make complex concepts more relatable. By starting with patient histories and personal anecdotes, Gary effectively engaged his students, allowing them to connect deeply with the material. This method helped students see the humanity in medicine and fostered a genuine interest in the subject.
Ethics and the Human Element
The conversation took a thoughtful turn as Marco asked about the ethical challenges faced by medical professionals. Gary shared that judgment based on patient behavior, like substance abuse, can affect how healthcare providers perceive and treat patients. Through storytelling and self-reflection, Gary encouraged empathy and a commitment to treating every patient with equal respect and care.
The Future of Neurotechnology
Drawing from his background, Gary provided insights into the advancements in neurotechnology, the potential for brain-electronic interfaces, and the ethical implications of such innovations. His reflections underscored both the positive possibilities and the darker ramifications of these technological advancements.
From Medicine to Fiction Writing
Gary also discussed his transition to writing fiction, a process he described as liberating and enjoyable compared to non-fiction writing. He shared his plans for future projects, including a soccer-themed coming-of-age story and a post-apocalyptic novel exploring a disease that alters human behavior.
Closing Thoughts
The episode wrapped up with reflections on the power of storytelling in education and the joy of writing fiction. Marco and Gary emphasized that storytelling is inherent to humanity and a vital tool for learning and understanding the world.
Conclusion
This episode of the Audio Signals Podcast offered listeners a unique blend of insights into neurosurgery, the art of storytelling, and the fascinating journey of a neurosurgeon-turned-author. Whether you're interested in medicine, fiction, or education, Gary Simonds' experiences demonstrate the profound impact of storytelling on all aspects of life.
About the Book
Brain surgeon and unlikely war hero, Ryan Brenan, has it all. A booming practice, a beautiful home in an idyllic setting, and a happy loving family. Then, the apparitions begin.
Subtle at first, but soon there's no doubt about it–he's seeing ghosts, spirits, and the undead. Of course, he could just be going nuts, cracking under the pressure of his constant exposure to death, mayhem, and tragedy. But he believes he has proof that the ghosts are very real, and that they are specifically haunting him.
We join Ryan as he tends to the sick and injured in his hospitals' trauma bays, intensive care units, and operating rooms, all the while seeking to understand why he has become a target of the dead. Will he break down? Will he lose all that is precious to him? Will he be drawn to the other side of the great divide?
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Resources
Death’s Pale Flag (Book): https://bqbpublishing.com/product/deaths-pale-flag/
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Book | “Death's Pale Flag” a Medical Psychological Thriller | A Conversation with Author Gary Simonds | Audio Signals Podcast With Marco Ciappelli
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: I did click. There you go. All right. Some technical difficulties. To get started with this podcast, but we are here. This is Marco Ciappelli, the podcast today. Uh, this episode is on audio signals, which is where we talk about stories, storytellers, and storytelling in general, and that, as you know, if you heard me before, it could be anything.
Uh. Photographer, painter, writer, uh, musician. Even going to the grocery store and, and communicating with someone, you're still telling a story, so pretty much. For me, everybody is a storyteller and we're all made of story of stories. Some stories are more interesting than other, but I think it's subjective.
Um, I love ghosts. So today we're actually going to talk about that, but it's not those ghosts with the sheets and, uh, that I always make a joke with my wife. I want to dress just like that for Halloween, just to shit on and make some hole for eyes. Kind of, uh, Charlie Brown, but, uh, these are ghosts that somebody have seen, let's say, or imagine to see them will figure it out into a, uh, into an hospital, if I understand well, and, uh, because our guest Gary Simmons is actually a retired Neurosurgeon and still teaching, but he's going to tell us about that.
So Gary, welcome to the show. I said I was going to do it a little short, but you know, then I get carried away and I gave you a, I gave you a push here, but tell us more about yourself and, uh, what you do nowadays.
[00:01:43] Gary Simonds: Oh, sure. Well, uh, you know, first of all, thank you so very much for having me. It's an honor. Um, and I've looked forward to this conversation.
Um, I, for most of my, uh, my adult life, I've been involved in, uh, medicine and as you said, uh, practiced neurosurgery for many years, did thousands and thousands and thousands of operations, uh, headed a neurosurgical program and And, uh, residency training program and did all that sort of stuff. But I, I put the scalpel down a few years ago for a number of reasons.
And, uh, since that time, uh, as you noted, I, I've been teaching med students, um, undergrads, uh, but really focused more one on my wife, who I kind of neglected for 40 some years and two, uh, on writing and I've been writing books.
[00:02:40] Marco Ciappelli: Well, that's pretty good. So I mentioned. Uh, ghosts. And I want to get right there.
How a neurosurgeon that you expect maybe will write something a little bit more, you know, related to what what you do, you decided to go Uh, into some kind of paranormal or normal, whatever, I don't know what angle you have there. I'm very curious. And, uh, yeah, tell me, tell me a little bit about that. Tell me about the book that you wrote.
[00:03:10] Gary Simonds: Well, I, I, I had written a few books before, um, all nonfiction and through much of my life, you talk about stories, well, every patient that you interface with, every patient you see. Family, you take care of. Uh, I mean, it's just nothing but stories. Um, and some are pretty darn harsh. Some are very heartwarming.
Um, but boy, the, you know, these are very intense stories at, at very intense moments in everybody's lives. Probably the most intense moments in their lives. And I always kind of, uh, would write down little vignettes or think about little vignettes. And I wanted at some point just to bring it to the public, just to kind of understand more what's going on behind the veils, if you will, of modern day, uh, neurosurgery and modern medicine in general.
Um, and hopefully to get a real sense of the humanity, uh, of all involved, particularly the patients and their families and their bravery. And, uh, originally it was going to be a non fiction book. Again, me just talking about it. And I started writing and I said, God, this is boring. I, I'm not sure people would really enjoy this or not.
Um, And I started thinking, well, what if I made this a, a novel instead and kind of put people right into the middle of the fray rather than being outside observers. So I, I wanted to make it a book about the neurosurgical world, but a novel. And, um, after a while thinking about it, I thought, well, geez. Most of my professional time I spent very much right on the dividing line of life and death with so many people.
Um, and I began thinking about, you know, that, that transition from life to death and us always trying to pull people back from it, if you would. Um, but were there Another world besides ours, if there is more to it all than just what we experience. Um, I, you know, I could see somehow, uh, people like, like what I was doing right there at the interface between the two worlds, maybe having some of one world spill into the other, Periodically for them.
And that's where the idea started generating and I, I thought of the concept of, well, what if we have a neurosurgeon who's clearly beat up, clearly burning out, um, who begins to see ghosts and, you know, originally he's going to be, He's of course going to be scientific and believe that maybe it's seizures, maybe it's sleep deprivation, uh, but it, you know, it's never going to be something from another dimension.
Um, but as the story goes on, he convinces himself. number of reasons that these are really ghosts. And, uh, they're terror they're terrifying to a certain degree. Um, uh, but he's trying to figure out what, what in the world they would want with him and trying to figure out if they They're trying to message him, get to him, or maybe even pull him over to their side of the bridge, if you will, between life and death.
So hopefully it becomes a thriller for people. But you know, throughout it all, we see his life in neurosurgery, hears and sees all these stories. Stories of his various patients who come to him because of traumas and strokes and tumors and that sort of thing. Um, and so hopefully I, I, I really wanted it to be very immersive, um, for the reader, uh, with this paranormal twist.
[00:07:11] Marco Ciappelli: It's very cool. So it, so the first thing that come to mind is that lately I am interviewing a lot of writers that become writers after, or, you know, while they're still in their career, but when they have experienced, like I mentioned, like Former pilots and military that become lawyers, and then they end up writing a book just about that.
And there is a line in between where you stop, um, being. all reality driven and scientific, if you, if I may, and, uh, and you throw the, the fiction in it. And that could be again in a, in a psychological thriller. It can be into one of the last interview was with, uh, um, AI that become part of a team of, People that need to resolve something, but they don't just use AI, but actually AI become integral part of the team.
And this come from the background of science. So I'm going to ask you the same thing. Like where, where do you stop and say, this is the part where I'm allowed to really go fictional. And I guess talking about ghost, it's kind of like, you know, you're already going there, but is there a strong connection With the reality of and factual things.
[00:08:44] Gary Simonds: Absolutely, at least in this case. In this case, I have some other books that are probably going to drift a little further, but I wanted the neurosurgery side of it and the patient experience side of it and the stories behind the patient's injuries and illnesses and the reactions of the family to be all very real.
So I, I, you know, definitely used experiences that I had had and stories that I had encountered and of course changed them so that they wouldn't be identifiable or anything like that. But these, this is the real stuff. And, you know, I always worked in, in these big trauma centers with helicopters coming in every few minutes and a lot of injured people and people with strokes and stuff like that.
A lot of an emergent neurosurgical side of things. Um, and, uh, it was busy. It was just busy, busy. busy, particularly in the middle of the night, uh, which is where, when really bad things seem to happen. Anyway, quite a few people have challenged me and said, Oh, you must've made up, you know, the intensity of this and, and the volume of it.
The fact that, you know, you would, the neurosurgeon would be up every few nights. All night long. Uh, and I said, no, no, I can tell you none of this is hyperbolic. Uh, if anything, I, I, I tried to tone down some of it just because I didn't want it overwhelming. So yeah, that side is very real. The science is very real.
Um, and, uh, the reader has to decide how real, uh, the ghosts and the paranormal side of it is.
[00:10:37] Marco Ciappelli: And I, the stories. Inspired by some real fact? Like, were you thinking about some situation that you lived with, experiencing with some patients and they ended up, of course, not named, but in the, in the book itself?
[00:10:55] Gary Simonds: Yeah, I tried, you know, I tried not to make it one to one. So I, I, I would, everything would be kind of an amalgam. Uh, of patient stories, doctors, uh, that sort of thing, uh, rather than, you know, rather than be a direct reporter, but, uh, that is, uh, but again, it's very real and I, I definitely wanted people to experience, um, the reality of it as opposed to, again, getting too hyperbolic and making it too or something like that.
So I wanted, uh, I wanted it to be as true to form as possible. Um, You know, even, even with the ghosts, one of the, one of the things I tend to ask readers is ultimately, what do you think was more frightening? The, you know, the, the paranormal side of this or the very normal, very real side of modern day medicine and hospital function and, and that sort of thing.
[00:12:03] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. That's, uh, that's, Pretty cool. Pretty cool and, and pretty harsh at the same time. It
[00:12:10] Gary Simonds: is harsh. It's not a, I don't think it's an easy read to be honest.
[00:12:15] Marco Ciappelli: Okay. Okay. So let's, let's move a little bit into the other thing that you mentioned when you suggested to be on the show, which is the fact that you're still teaching and And the fact that, like I said at the beginning, we're all made of stories.
We, we use storytelling. It's what we use for the, since the existing of time of our society to pass knowledge, to communicate to each other, stay in society and make things work. And some are better than other are doing so, but it's definitely something that it's, it's, it's very, very much what make us human, I think.
So using stories. when you, for example, teach and when you even interact with situations that are, as you mentioned, may not be pleasant when you're dealing with relatives, when you're dealing with, I mean, I think that throwing that metaphor, that something that it brings an example that it's, it's, it's, It became easier to digest, maybe easy to understand.
How do you apply this into your other life that is not the writer's life?
[00:13:34] Gary Simonds: Yeah, I, Marco, I agree with you. I mean, I think it is both a critical and important way to convey concepts, uh, but also far more interesting, uh, for people. And so, for example, I have a course at Virginia Tech that we call Exploring Clinical Neuroscience.
And it's, it's for undergrads usually interested in medicine. But, um, we basically look at various, uh, neurological diseases and how they're treated. Uh, and where I like to go from there, frankly, is, uh, you know, springboard off of the disease into kind of medical socioeconomics and ethics and, and that sort of thing.
But we always start with a patient history, a patient story, uh, very much kind of get into the patient's story, the patient's situation. And you can just, you can see the students pulled into it, you know, by, by humanizing it rather than just Throw up an X-ray and say, here we have to deal with this. You talk about the person, you talk about how it presented, you talk about how they spoke with you and uh, you know, how they reacted to their diagnosis.
And it very much pulls them in and then they. You know, you can see them want to help this patient as we go through the class, which I think is, uh, it's really just a delight to do. And, and you can, you can just see the excitement fill them. And I think it's because we start with the stories first, and, and we can, we can, We can deal with the science later, and then we kind of go back to the stories again and get into, um, you know, the, the surrounding, um, concepts, uh, and issues beyond the pure science.
Um,
[00:15:32] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:15:33] Gary Simonds: Oh, I was just going to say, you know, for example, also when I was training neurosurgical residents, these are people have gone through medical school and learning neurosurgery, we would use stories there a lot as, as well. I mean, every day you were presenting stories anyway, but In, in our academic sessions, we would often go into role playing, for example, just to give them an experience.
And we had a bunch of physical, uh, physician assistants or what we call PAs, uh, who would do great jobs portraying patients in various states of distress. And, uh, and, and I think again, just entering into the story very much helped with the learning.
[00:16:15] Marco Ciappelli: You know, I, It's interesting you're going there. I'm actually, I read a lot of people may think not fun stuff, although I'd like to read a lot of sci fi as well and, and, you know, even Harry Potter, but right now I'm actually finishing a book called The Bottle for Your Brain.
And it's about neurotechnology. And it's from an ethical perspective is all the CGI and all the scanning done even with To see like how you meditate, if you do it successfully, but also like thought police scum in 1984, uh, George Orwell. So, uh, I love your, your, actually your opinion on this as, as a neurosurgeon.
And, um, if you, deal with situations like this when you actually get into, I don't know, I'm not a doctor myself, but when you go into the recovery phase, um, you know, changes in, in the brain activity, I mean, this whole book goes from, the ethics to the actual description of how memory works or how you know, we we perceive the world so I'm taking this opportunity to get your opinion on you know Where are we going with this because it seems like we can literally read people's mind
[00:17:33] Gary Simonds: Yeah, I, I think, um, I mean, obviously I find the, the subject super fascinating.
Um, the, there's a few things to say. Uh, I think one of the most fascinating things about the brain is that I think a lot of people, Still see it almost like a computer. You put it together in the factory, you know, you have these connections and that connections, you can load a bunch of software into it.
But basically the wiring is set. You have a wiring diagram and that's how it's set and that's how it's going to function, uh, from this day on. If you, if you need a more complicated or more complex system, you're going to have to buy one later on. You know, you're going to have to switch out and upgrades, but what's really fascinating, I think about.
Our brains is that we're not hardwired. We are, our wiring is changing minute to minute, second to second with all the experiences that, that we're going through. So it's, it's always changing. And I think partially that is one of the reasons why we may be able to tap into it so well. Um, Um, is that it's, it adapts.
And so, you know, if we set up a brain electronic interface, it's possible for our brain to adapt to that interface and, and actually start interacting with computers through it. And so it really leaves the door open to some wild and crazy stuff. And I saw a fair amount of this in its early stages because I started in the military, um, military medicine.
And I was out by the time there were all the horrible injuries from the second Gulf War. But, But a lot of my friends were still in it, and they were doing a fair amount of research in that brain electronic interface and seeing if we could move robotic arms and that sort of thing, which we can, um, and we all know the technology is going to continue to explode.
So. All these electronic interfaces with the brain going one direction or the other, the brain controlling something external or the external world reading the brain, uh, is very much coming, uh, and obviously it has frightening, uh, potential ramifications, as well as amazing, miraculous, uh, support of, you know, human beings and human disease and, and that sort of thing.
But boy, you could really see it go dark, uh, imagine it go dark pretty easily.
[00:20:13] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I can see you write a book about this. Uh, yeah, no, it makes you think and of course any conversation related to to technology there is always, yep, it's, it's about how you use it and, uh, it's, it's a tool and you can use it for good and for bad and, and, and go from there.
Um, let's go back into the storytelling part and, uh, and actually the education because I'm, I'm pretty passionate about that. I'm a big fan of Again, telling stories to, to inspire also people, maybe kids that Learn the moral and the virtues and, you know, back in the days could have been a not so, uh, kids friendly, uh, the way that in the way that Disney maybe adopted into a more mild way to, to present it, but the Grimm's brothers, they were pretty, you know, Pretty harsh.
But, you know, I grew up reading that stuff myself. Pinocchio, the book Pinocchio. It's, uh, it's actually not the Pinocchio you see in the Disney. It's pretty, it's pretty heavy. So my point is, again, we learn from stories and If there is one person that I think made a big difference in my generation as a kid, Carl Sagan, that started telling this amazing story and educate people on subjects like space exploration and physics and all of that, that were not very digestible.
So there is a level where the, those that have the knowledge, they want to keep it for themselves. And, and those that said, no, we need to share this knowledge. And I think to do that, there's nothing better than storytelling. So either your, your perspective on this and also how you actually use it when you're in the class, I mean, what kind of story do you tell?
[00:22:14] Gary Simonds: Yeah, there's, um, there, there's obviously a lot of science books out there, and I've, I've, uh, you know, because of my work and probably just interest you end up reading tons of science over the years. Some science writers, though, are really good at at injecting story even into a purely, uh, nonfiction, uh, work.
And so, um, I, you know, I can think of several where they'll be talking about some scientific progress and research over time. And sometimes they'll just throw in some vignettes about the scientists themselves. And, you know, they got into this accident, hurt their arm for that reason. They got interested in how The muscles of the fingers work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But they start, you know, with some sort of vignette, uh, about the scientists themselves. And again, it pulls you in rather than just reading on and on and on of the pure science. So I, you know, I agree. Anyway, any way that you can weave a story in is, is very worthwhile. Through the years, I've given a lot of talks on a lot of different subjects, medicine related, and I always try to pull in a story.
So like one example is, um, throughout the, again, I worked in trauma centers and throughout the years, I noticed that when a trauma would come in, a bad trauma from a terrible car accident or something like that, Um, we would get called down for the neurological concerns and we'd walk in and we'd say, you know, what's going on?
And there'd be 20 people around the patient and, and the lead person would turn to us and say, well, this is Mr. Jones. He's 3-year-old who went through his windshield and, uh, you know, went down the pavement for 50 yards and has pneumothorax and ruptured spleen and broken femur. And, you know, they go through a laundry list of terrible injuries.
And, you know, just hearing this, if you're an outside person, I think first thing you would be thinking is, Oh my God, how does anybody survive this? And that poor son of a gun. But it was funny, funny in a weird way. It was so common at the end of this, this list of terrible injuries that often they would say something like, but he was drunk.
And, um, it, I heard it so many times it got the wheels turning and I'm thinking, why do we say something like that? I've noticed that. That sort of respond, but he was drunk, but he was taking drugs, but he was getting gotten in a fight, but he was in a bar at three in the morning. And of course, you know, this would happen.
Um, and I began to think that part of it is that, you know, when we see all these horrible things as physicians, We probably start feeling vulnerable ourselves or we start worrying about our own family members. And so if there's some mitigating circumstance, if we can at least tell ourselves, yeah, but they were drunk, we wouldn't do that.
Yeah, but they were shooting up. We wouldn't do that. Yeah, but they were at the bar at three in the morning. We wouldn't do that. Anyway. I began thinking that I, I worried that we may devalue and make judgments on certain patients. And I wanted to address that and just bring that out for people to think about and talk about because we don't want to do that.
We want to treat every patient, you know, as if, as if they're the president of the United States. Um, so What I did for this lecture, for this, this talk that I would give, I talked about the fact that, uh, back when I was in college, I lived in New Jersey and we went to visit a friend of mine in a college just across the river in Pennsylvania, and, uh, he came down with two big bottles of wild turkey and said, you guys better drink.
But it turned out that his girlfriend of many years had. broken up with him that night. So we were ordered to drink and we obeyed and we helped him drink these bottles of wild turkey. And then it was time to crash to go to sleep. Um, but we're looking around the basement of his fraternium. We said, we're not staying here.
We decided to drive home and each of us were kind of like, uh, I don't know. I've had a bit to drink. There was about five or six of us in the car. And one of us said, Hey, no, I, I'm fine. I, I didn't have that much. I can drive home safely. So we all get in the car. We drive. Back to New Jersey, we go to sleep in the living room of one of our friends.
They lived on this farm. And in the morning, one of my friends looks out the window and goes, who drove us home last night? And I said, well, that would be me. And he said, uh, come here. And he points out the window. And they had this long farm front lawn, if you will, and there were all these tire marks all the way across it, you know, in zigzags.
And we look to the right and the car is parked in the bushes of the front of the house. And when I try, and so the way I go with that is, is to say, look, you know, we all do stupid things. There for me, you know, but for the grace of God, I could have been on the. The trauma stretcher and everybody's saying, but he was drunk.
Um, and so again, I think it's a, I think it carries a real impact, particularly when you can relate it to yourself and particularly if it's self deprecating as opposed to how wonderful am I, but I've, I've always found that, you know, some self deprecation and some humor in these stories goes a long way.
[00:28:07] Marco Ciappelli: Absolutely. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, I think it's a way to, you always want to justify that there is one reason, and you can pinpoint in an easy way. Yeah, it's black or white. It's, yeah, it took drugs. That's, that's why. This person died. Like if you read the news and there is a celebrity, somebody that dies, and it's in a young age, you kind of expect to see like, yes, but like, exactly, you know, I took drugs.
It did this or he had a problem before because You don't mean like that's not gonna be me and I think it's very human too. Of course like psychology there but but dealing with the situation my my question for you on this is when you When you're facing this situation By you mean anybody that then is going to be the one doing a surgery whatever kind of surgery, not just, you know, narrow or, or like bones or whatever it is.
Does it change your attitude? I mean, are you, I mean, ethically shouldn't obviously, and I think it doesn't, but doesn't it put that human something in the back of your head where like, am I performing a lesser quality just because the guy is a delinquent or the guy got shot by the cops because maybe he's a criminal?
I mean,
How do you teach them to the younger? I mean, you say role playing and all of that, but you gotta go through that stuff.
[00:29:45] Gary Simonds: Yeah. And, and again, I think that's where the storytelling is very important. And again, where we can reinforce the fact that, that we all do things that we're not proud of. And, and, uh, I think it calls upon them, therefore, to think about it themselves.
When have I done something where I could have easily been injured. And, and, uh, uh, what do I do to myself that is not particularly smart in terms of long term health? And, and, uh, think about, you know, all sorts of, uh, behaviors that we all engage in, or just take our mind off and driving for a second, you know, and look down at our phone or whatever.
I mean, it's countless, you know, as, as you go through, we're all human, we all have. Voibles. We all make mistakes. Um, so I think it's real important as, as you say, um, particularly to get this through to, um, our learners. But frankly, we need to remind ourselves all the time too. We had another exercise. That we found was particularly effective for our residents, um, because, you know, again, they, they're, they're learning the tricks of the trade and they got to go out and be able to do it.
We have seven years to, to train them, but, you know, there's a lot to learn. So, um, one of the exercises that we would do is periodically we'd have one of the senior members of the faculty just talk about something within the, The medical world that they did that was a horrible mistake or was terribly embarrassing or, or they had a terrible complication with the patient or they got into a terrible argument with the patient family or they got sued.
Um, and. And our residents found that to be some of the most valuable time, just these stories that look, you know, these people who you're, you're kind of venerating and you're learning so much from where, where you are to, you know, they've made their share of errors and the key that we would Try to reinforce is you're gonna make mistakes.
You are absolutely going to make mistakes and some are going to cause great harm. So you got to learn from them. You know, the, you, you can't brush them off. You can't say it's the will of God. You can't blame it on the patient. You gotta say, okay, can I do better next time? How can I do better next time?
[00:32:22] Marco Ciappelli: And also know that, yeah, chances are that it's going to happen. It's going to happen. You have to be prepared because as you say, we, we are human, even, I don't know, um, even Formula One driver that are the most trained out there, you know, or IndyCar. We're in the U. S. I'm European. So I think Formula One, they still make mistake and they have even the best technology nowadays and telemetry and computers and all of that.
But. They're still going to touch the guardrail and flip around. So even the best. So I think telling story, preparing for the future, we go back to, as kids, there is no better way, in my opinion, to educate than through stories and learning that. That's how life eventually is going it's going to be but we can't predict everything So, you know and we gotta have some fun So I love the fact that you actually throw all the fiction in there.
And of course, I understand it's not a it's not a fun um adventure of ghosts, uh going through the the walls of uh, Of a city and and making pranks, but it's uh, it's interesting. So let's end up with this. I'd like to know What's your next project? Are you going to keep writing? Are you writing something new nowadays?
But also when did you start writing? So give me the end the beginning and the end As we wrap this So when did you start writing and what are you going to do next?
[00:33:56] Gary Simonds: Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Marco, if you think about it, um, in, you know, in my profession, you were writing all the time, number one. I mean, you are writing all the time.
Every patient you see, you got to write up. I mean, it's just nonstop, all sorts of different reasons to write. But even there, you know, when you see a patient, you just see, have a typical patient visit, You can almost, it almost is a story that you write. You're writing a little bit about their background, their history.
You're writing this, hopefully, so that next time you read your own note, you can tell what you were thinking, uh, which is one of the, in fact, I'll give you a little vignette on that. For, we, we were so busy that for a while there, I, I, I hired a bunch of what we call scribes. in, in medicine. Now, it's very common to have scribes, particularly in the emergency room or anywhere where you're doing high volume.
And the scribes would just write down everything that happens in your patient interview. And I did that for a few months. And I look back and I, I got, I stopped it. I was like, I can't tell what I was thinking because they were just, it was almost like a voice dictation. You know, but there was none of the, what's my thought process?
How, what's the patient look like? How do they seem, you know, all that sort of thing didn't get in there. Whereas when I was writing it myself, it almost became a narrative, you know, around that patient. And then you got to the scientific facts. So, uh, I would not use voice activation or, uh, or scribes anymore.
I just wrote it out myself. And then I, you know, you're always writing scientific articles, or I, as I said, I wrote some, some medically related books. Um, So I wrote all the time, uh, and it wasn't until I started this that I started fiction, which I had no idea what I was doing. Um, so I read a bunch of books on how to write fiction.
Um, I don't know if it helped or not. I don't proclaim to be an accomplished fiction writer, but I will tell you this, back to, you know, the subject at hand, it is so much fun. compared to writing nonfiction. Nonfiction for me feels like book reports always. And I'm always, you know, getting, you know, just getting frustrated and tired out from doing it.
Writing fiction. I can sit down for six straight hours writing and it, it just doesn't stop. It just comes pouring out. So to answer your question on, on what else is coming out, you know, again, I'm, I'm a newbie in this, the, the people in the publishing world would tell you, you should stay within a genre and get people, you know, used to you and interested in you and wanting to read more of the same stuff.
And I, I believe that. I'm not doing that. So the next book is, is a soccer book, uh, uh, which you might appreciate. Uh, it's, although it eventually ends up in the Premier League. Um, but, um, uh, it's, I was hoping to, uh, of young men, uh, particularly here in America, particularly with the World Cup coming around and stuff.
So it's a, it's just a coming of age soccer book. Um, and then I have a book that I'm kind of trying and experimenting with. I'm going to put the chapters out online as I write them and see what people think and see if they want to play with it or play with me, you know, on what to do. But in that book, it does go back a little neuro.
Um, it's kind of an, uh, a playbook. post apocalyptic, where a, uh, a disease strikes much of the world. It kills quite a few people, but, but for the survivors, it, it lowers their IQ. It makes them hyper religious and, and, uh, fearful and, um, Somewhat more violent. And so the world kind of deteriorates into a more autocratic or more fascist type of situation.
And then it's just going to be the story of one person trying to, trying to escape with their family and survive.
[00:38:20] Marco Ciappelli: I love that. Screw the rules. Don't listen to them. Hey, you do, you write what you want to write.
[00:38:27] Gary Simonds: Well, that's a, you know, that's the fun, you know, getting back into storytelling is once you're in fiction, you can do whatever you want.
I mean, things can happen whatever way you want them to happen. So, uh, uh, it really is, it really is a blast.
[00:38:46] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. No, I agree with you. I mean, I, I've spent all my life writing, you know, copy in advertising, branding, and I love it. I have fun, you know, writing now articles about cybersecurity and, and, uh, but first of all, now it's easier.
I just talk about it. And then I have a transcript of the show. So that's easy. Thank you, CHAT GPT. But the, I want to make a point about when you go back and write is a, is a way to. To reflect on on certain things that when you just dictate you can't and an example for me is I have all these conversations sometimes are about AI, they're heavy, they're about, you know, social media, politics and manipulations, information and all of that and all of these and then when I even if I do talk about You know, declare that I get help from Generative AI to write the, the summary.
I still kind of go through it and I remember things that, Oh yeah, we did talk about that. Oh yeah. And, and I learn, I, that's when I memorize. our conversations more than when we are actually having that conversation. So the tone of voice, the whatever you wrote, it's, it's completely different. So that just to make a point that it's important to, you know, I think writing is a way to self reflect.
And the other one is, yeah, just have fun. I mean, when you're going to fiction, I'm writing some short stories with my mom, actually, that we translate in English, and they're for kids, and they're completely enchanted, magical, fictitious, and I love it, because there is no rules. I can make the character do whatever I want.
And it's so much fun. I don't need to justify it. It's magic.
[00:40:40] Gary Simonds: It really is. It's, it's a joy. And I'll, I'll tell you one other angle to it, which I, I didn't realize, and I found to be really exciting. And that is, and, and I've heard it, you know, many times, particularly since, but they say that, you know, once you release a story or a novel, um, It's no longer yours.
So, you know, you may have started with certain intentions and this is what this was going to symbolize, or this is what I was trying to get across here. And once the readers start going through it, they put their own interpretations upon it, their own life experiences upon it, their own stories upon it.
And it is so interesting to hear their versions. And half the time I'm going, Oh yeah, no, that's better than mine. Yeah, I'll take that one.
[00:41:32] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. That's another thing about stories. You, you interpret it based on your own experience, as you said, and that's, that's the beauty of it. Well, Gary, this was really fun.
I had a great time. I hope the audience, uh, had, uh, Great time my goal with this is always to leave people with more questions than answers when when they finish to listen to this and that thinking is a good thing and having you know questioning things is that and maybe wondering maybe you should Grab a pen and start writing.
So apart from that, um, I want to thank you again for being here, for sharing your stories. There'll be like links on the notes for getting in touch with you. You have a website, your social media and all of that. And, um, and of course, stay tuned, everybody subscribe because we'll have a lot more stories.
We're all made of stories that we said here many times. Gary, thank you so, so much.
[00:42:34] Gary Simonds: Oh, it's truly my honor and a true pleasure. Really
[00:42:39] Marco Ciappelli: cool. Thank you very much. Bye everybody.