Tony Cirillo on Why AI Can’t Replace the Human Side of Medicine

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Brooklyn kid as you can get. So I have often told people my life growing up was three movies, none of which anybody in today's generation will get. But The

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Godfather, yes, Good Fellas and Saturday Night Fever.

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That's the tough one for some. But but that was growing up in Brooklyn for me.

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So very much and and you and I started to talk about this about the sense of community and neighborhood.

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Yes. and how that shapes who we are, how we grow up when we're young in particular. Those years really make a difference in who we become as adults.

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I 100% agree. I mean, I we talked a little earlier, I grew up in Toronto.

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Um, and you know, I joke, it's funny you say it, you know, you're Italian cuz growing up in Toronto, we identified, we

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had a lot of people from a lot of different places. Um, and I remember uh uh Leo was my friend and his mom uh

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would always feed me and even when I was full, she would feed me again um until I was ready to throw up. Yeah.

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Um but I tell people I was I I was Italian until I was 12.

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Like no, I swear to God, like I was Italian until I was 12. I didn't know, you know, and you know what it's like.

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Canada is a little different. I mean, it's probably not different now, but back then, you know, he didn't identify necessarily with, okay, what's the color of my skin?

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Or, you know, it was really just like Tony was Tony lived next to me. Tony was just I just walked to Tony's house and and his mom fed me. So, that

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the Italian culture, the Italian family, the neighborhood is amazing.

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Yeah. Um and and that sense of you know today and you know at the con you know earlier on the panel we were talking

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about how what's the measure of success for taking care of patients with behavioral health illness and part of

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this is about particularly my my real passion is about young about kids. Yeah, because we do a really less than stellar

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job of taking care of them in the system. But part of it is we've watched that we get now there's more and more of them. And part of that is they've not

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learned some life skills. They've not learned about interacting with other people. They they live on this phone

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thing. Yeah. And and they don't have the same interpersonal skills. And they also have not had the same I'll say mentors

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but adult figures in their life who we used to have in things like baseball teams or scouting where where there were

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lots of adults who helped you through some of those challenging times and let you know it's okay to fail. Yes.

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It's okay to fall down. You get back up but and you learn how not to fall the next time or learn how to fall better anyway.

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Right. Right. But part of my neighborhood and you know again this very oh my god like growing up on the block like if you did something wrong

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you were in trouble three times before you got home because two other moms already knew about it like like but but

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that helped you know it was okay to do certain things and not to do certain things but it also you you knew you were

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never alone and I think that's part of this whole concept of Brooklyn and neighborhoods and now how are we going to raise a nation of kids got to let

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them know they're not alone that that we're there with them and that and that's why they can they can fail a little bit.

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Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if we needed the internet back then because by the time you got home you already they already knew what you had done.

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Yeah. The mom network worked faster than any Wi-Fi.

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Yeah. Right. Absolutely. But I remember I mean I I don't I know it's a different time and I'm reminiscing now as you talk about community. I can remember getting

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on my bike and and now I look back and it was literally miles and miles and miles away from home but it's it was a

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very different time. Do you think that that community's been is lost now?

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I think it has been and part of it is just the you know over the last 20 30 years the nature of the the nuclear

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family is gone and the extended family is gone as well. So part of that community used to be that grandma lived around the corner, auntie lived, you

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know, three blocks away. You knew that there were people around your people who you still felt part, you still felt safe.

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Now we we live in a world where not only do people work remote, but but families are remote and and you know, my

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kids live in three different states and so there is no closeness anymore. So, if you're a kid growing up, how do you feel connected, right?

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Um, and unfortunately, the only thing they connect to is this these phones and social media, which boy, I don't know

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about you, but when I look at what comes out, there's very little good and a lot of just telling them about the the ills

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of the world, and I feel overwhelmed. I can't imagine what they feel like at the age of 11 or 12.

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Um, because there's some tough stuff out there.

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Yeah, I agree. I mean, I've kind of I [clears throat] kind of went through my cycles with social media. The cycle I'm in now is to your point, like there's so

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much like I get frustrated when influencers are getting called from TV stations to talk about healthcare.

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I'm like, wait a second, you know, I you

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know, I'm sorry, but I it's what 14 and a half million patients that we care for. If you want to know about something, come talk to somebody who's

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actually seen a patient and and had lead this partnership. But they call somebody who's just popular and I think

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got five million followers of following them and you go what what did you do to become an influencer? Nothing.

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So now I'm in this mode of trying to dive in to try to help offset some of that.

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The comments I made were look that's a reality. And actually, I had mentioned to you I was at the White House last week on the White House was uh

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announcing the new drug control policy, which is an incredibly thoughtful and really beginning to end policy. It's not

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just about reducing the amount of drugs that come into the country. That's part of it, right?

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But it's about ensuring that we have the right resources to take care of patients with both primary mental illness and

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substance use disorder. And you know the ven diagram overlap of those two is pretty big.

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Yeah. But the last part of the of the of the strategy is about celebrating recovery, which I thought was incredibly

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powerful because pretty powerful because the there's 23 and a half million people in this country who are in recovery and and the point of the

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whole strategy is yes, we can do stuff like trying to prevent drugs coming in, but we've got to create a culture to

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tell particularly young people not everybody ends up with drugs. Not everybody ends up using. Yes, it is a

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chronic disease and addiction is terrible, but not everybody goes there.

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And and we want to make sure that kids have every opportunity to feel supported, to develop life skills so that they make choices that don't get

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them there. But the last part of this is if you end up there, we will be here for you. And that's was an incredibly

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powerful part of this of that whole plan.

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That's amazing. Would you say that this lack of community this that's accentuated by the fact that I no longer

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have to interact with with Moo and Tony that I can interact with you know somebody that may be not even real? Yeah.

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Um what's your what's your analysis of the impact on healthcare?

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Yeah. So we're not the trusted we're not the trusted source anymore. Uh, and I, you know, you want to talk about going

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back in the day, the Middle Ages, people relied on the church because they couldn't read. They didn't know what the Bible said. So, they relied on somebody

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to tell them what the Bible said. We used to think that we were the only people who could read the medical textbooks. And guess what? Chad GPT can read the medical textbooks, too.

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[laughter]

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So, so the issue of influencers is to me like the influence of AI. We can try and

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say, "Well, but wait a minute. I I went to medical school for four years. I've been practicing for 30 years." That that's not going to be what wins the

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day. We've got to find those influencers who want to tell our story, who want to listen to what we say, but they're going

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to be the voice. Maybe we're not the voice anymore, but we should still be the person behind the voice. And the second thing is we've got to realize

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that AI is adapting faster than we can possibly imagine. And and I kid in my I

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in my talks that I give to residents and students and and ASEAP chapters, I have I have a slide that that talks about AI

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and I put up the picture of the Terminator movie and I robot and I go, I know this doesn't usually end well for the humans, so we better figure this out now.

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Yeah.

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And look, there are going to be robot companions whether we want to or not. We ought to think about, well, what does that really

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mean? What is it going to mean to have a robot companion? Whether it's a physical one, a holographic one, or just a

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digital one that talks to you, that's going to be boy, that's an opportunity in my view, if we capitalize on that and

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say, great, how will kids learn from those? Yeah.

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Because maybe that's who they're going to learn from. And honestly, I shouldn't care where they learn their life skills as long as they learn them. I think that's I think I 100% agree with you.

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The idea that as a knowledge repository that somehow you're going to come to the emergency department and see me and Moo

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is going to give you information that you didn't have before. It doesn't exist.

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And I agree with you. Um I think the idea of us being uber human, I mean I think this is an opportunity with AI for

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us to be more human than we've ever been before.

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it it's the only thing we got left because the the science is the science and it's going to be knowable to everybody.

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So, how do we take advantage of that?

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And and it's the application of the science, the art of medicine, the healing part. Yeah.

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That's what I tell young people to think about.

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Because if you're only there to interpret a test or know what test to order, that's going to get that's going to get more challenging for you. But if

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you're there to no one, there's never going to be an AI that sits there and holds the hand and tells someone they have cancer.

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Yeah. And that moment for for Mimu, the what I call the restorative moment when you walk into a room where a

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[clears throat] complete and total stranger literally trust their life into your hands. You better hold their hand

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and you better let them know that you're not just going to care for them, but you're going to care about them. And if you do that well, if you really are

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there in that moment, boy, you can make a big difference in the world. And it should be restorative for the patient, but it also should be restorative for

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you. That's where the joy of medicine comes from. You look, you want to memorize the Kreb cycle, good on you. I think I sit.

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Yeah, I think I forgot that before I memorized. But but being a healer, boy, that's why we were called for.

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That's that's what the calling is.

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And I also tell people, look, some days some of those patients are not going to need their body healed.

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Yeah. Some days they're just going to need their mind healed or their soul healed. Good for you because you don't really want to take care of everybody who's literally trying to die on you.

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Yeah.

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But at that moment, just be the healer that that person needs.

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Sit and listen. Maybe that's all they need. And yes, it may not be the most critical exciting emergency, but you can

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heal people lots of different ways. Do you think that changes the framework by which we train medical students and residents or do you think that they're already getting that?

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They're I hope it No, they're not getting that.

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I And I think right now we have a generation that I think they're struggling because they are caught in in

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this nexus of I think they got into medicine thinking they were going to be the keepers of the of wisdom and knowledge.

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Yeah. And now somebody's told them, "I'm sorry. We have something better than you to do that." So they they go, "Well, what am I here for?" And yes, you can do

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procedures. That's great. But that's a small part of what we do. Moo. You you you're mostly there to listen and mostly

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there to to to reassure and comfort and coordinate. That's really our job.

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And I mean, you're almost like a health in especially emergency medicine, you're almost a healthcare navigator to some degree, right? I mean, there's a few times there's a few times, right? Innovations.

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Yeah.

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critically ill people. Look, that that's still But but for but but you still got to then figure out how do that's to me

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about the caring about that person because if it's just caring for great I put the central line in and I'm done.

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But but now wait a minute. But what does that mean for their family? What what is what is this what is this person's

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story? Because everybody's got a story and you ought to you ought to care about them. I don't think we're teaching that.

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And we got to teach that way before medical school. And honestly, we ought to be thinking about what are the the criteria to get into medical school.

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Now, I talked to lots of people. We've gone back to pure numbers. Yes.

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Because the number of medical school applications is so overwhelming. The the medical school committees are they they

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just we got 30,000 applications for a 100 seats. We we can't possibly learn everything about these people. And so

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they've gone back to numbers which I think are not the best way to find healers.

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I I totally agree with you. You know, when you look back at your leadership journey, you know, and your clinical

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journey, but also your career journey, when did that flip for you? Like when did it flip for you to realize that, you know, I mean, I'm sure we started the

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same way, right? Like you you get out of residency, you're like, "Okay, you know, I can do this, I can do that." And then at some point, you know, I think it was

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when I had a a an older physician that I was working with did something completely different with a patient that I thought was totally malpractice and it

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worked out better than if I would have done what I wanted to do, right? I learned.

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You're like, "Huh?" I was like, "Old guy knows something." Yeah. The old guy knows something.

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When did that flip for you to really focus on sort of the the the almost like that psychosocial part of being a physician?

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To being a healer.

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Yeah. To being a healer. Healer. It actually for me moo was two other points in time.

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So the first thing for me was in high school like many of most of us we were overachievers right we were top of our class kind of people and I got

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accepted to West Point to the military academy and went up to the military academy where I was probably the worst

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cadet in the history of the core. I was terrible. I was I was a complete screw-up.

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And and and I left after three months and for the first time I had failed. Oh.

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And you go, what is this all about? Because I'm used to being the superstar. Right.

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Right. Whether it was school or scouts or sports, like I I would like and then all of a sudden you're like, what do what do you mean I'm I was last in the

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in the squad. Like holy crap. like I better figure out life. So being humbled early on made you go, "Huh, I'm not the

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smartest. I'm not the best at everything." I wish kids would learn that and I wish parents would learn that because not all

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of your kids are going to be LeBron James. I hate to tell them that not all of your kids are going to be all stars in, you know, the major leagues.

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Some of your kids are just going to be people. you better teach them how to be people rather than just athletes or whatever kind of superstar you think they are. And and we watch parents now

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trying to groom their kids into being, you know, superstars when not everybody's going to be that. The second

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part goes back to my Brooklyn because I ended up kind of struggling through three different colleges before I got my

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bachelor's degree. Ended up graduating from one of the city university schools in New York that's basically a business school. like premed was a joke.

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[clears throat] Um I shouldn't say that, but it was. Um and so I graduated with a 34 GPA from a

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not prestigious college with a 50th percentile MCAT. And somehow I didn't understand why Yale, Stanford or or

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Harvard did not take me into medical school. I know, shocking. Um so I ended up teaching high school for two years.

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And I taught a Catholic high school. I taught biology and health, but I taught in bed Bedford Styver in Brooklyn. I

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taught in in back in the late 80s when Bedstey was still was the hood. Yeah. And that was a tough place.

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Not so much for me. Moo. But I in of the 1600 kids in that school, uh, I don't think I met a single father. I met a lot

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of moms who were working three jobs who were doing everything they could to give their kid a chance. And then the other

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lesson that I will never forget that has changed me was I when I got the job when I interviewed it was during the summer and there were no kids in the building

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and I show up first day of school and 1600 kids show up and there's not a single one of them that's white and I was like whoa.

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It literally took me about 25 minutes to realize that the color of the kid's skin didn't matter.

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That every kid in high school is exactly the same. There's the hitters, the jocks, the nerds, the geeks. They they're all they come in the same

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flavors. They just look different. And I realized that I had prejudged in a way that I never thought I would

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ever do. And I promised myself I would never do that again. That I would never never prejudge a person, that I would listen to their story.

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Yes. And that's what I would hope that we could teach you know the people coming up to be

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physicians now particularly emergency physicians you know in Walt Whitman the quote be curious not judgmental you know

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made very popular by um you know the the TV show about the soccer coach in England or if I can say which show but

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anyway um but but be curious and not judgmental because we all have flaws and nobody's perfect and if you walk into

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that room thinking you're better than that other person, you probably don't deserve to be in that room.

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I I love what you said about, you know, what I what I call boxes, right? It's the boxes that society builds paints for

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us. Also, sometimes it's the boxes that we have for ourselves. I mean, even in emergency medicine and you know, as a leader, um, you know, the leader in

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emergency medicine, uh, there's so much that people assume. Um, but once you to to your point about curiosity and really understanding the stories, you know, to

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try to combine all of that. So, you I don't know if you know you have a reputation. [laughter]

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We might have we might have to edit this out. No, wait. Go ahead. Come on. Yeah. Let's see. Let me hear it. Bring it. No, you What's What's You got a problem?

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You talking to me?

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You talking to me? Are you talking to me?

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You're talking to me. Um, but you have a reputation. you have a reputation for being uh sort of for all people. I don't know

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if you if that's something that you know is out there about you just even in spaces because we're we we're I mean we get to talk hi how you doing this is

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probably the longest conversation we've had but we're tangential to each other so we hear things about each other and you know what I hear about you is

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that like everybody is like Tony Tony Tony and I think that that's because of the experience that you you you you pay time

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no matter where you are what side of the aisle you're on where you're from even a Canadian I mean, um, your your your

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ability to be cur be curious to really dive into what their story is, I think, is is amazing.

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I I think for me, I I feel we all we talk about imposttor syndrome. Yeah.

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Right. And you talk about being the leader in emergency medicine. I think I'm like number 4,755 because there are way smarter people

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than me. There are way more accomplished people than me. My only skill is that I'm blessed with I I want to make sure

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that for this specialty that that we get what we deserve in the sense of we fight we're going to have to fight for

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everything. And I feel truly honored and blessed to be able to be in this position. Uh, but I've never felt like

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I'm the leader and I know how flawed I am and I just know we're all flawed and

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and I never presume to be better than anybody else. And so and I'm always amazed at particularly the the the

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patients if you take the time to talk to them. Yeah. The stories they tell and their life.

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Boy, those are some amazing stories. And if all you focus on is I got the diagnosis right, you missed the most important part of that whole thing,

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there's another human being there that wants to talk with you. Yeah. Just just give them a chance.

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Um what what what's your why? What you know, you're passionate. I see the passion in you. Um I'm sure if we kept talking it it's going to keep coming out.

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Be careful. Be careful.

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Yeah. Be careful about that passion. But I I love it. I love it because I mean I feel passionate about um you know the impact that that we can

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all have on the world together. But what does that what's that why for you? What is when you wake up in the morning you're like hey I'm going to do this.

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Yeah. It it's transitioned because um I know this is shocking to you but I'm now a PGY 32.

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I know. I know. Uh so it's even less about me than it ever has been. And my

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why today is that the specialty continues to be under attack. And it pains me to hear early career people

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talking about, well, you know, maybe I'll do this for five years and I don't really care. Boy, that is that that

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hurts my soul. And my why right now is I want them to understand the power that they have to heal. the the the feeling

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that you get when you do something for someone else. And somebody did this the other day. They said to me, "If you if I gave you $25 right now, what would you

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do with it?" And somebody was like, "Well, I would go get a really fancy coffee. I would go have a drink. You know, whatever they would do." And

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somebody said, "And how long would the good feeling last for you if you did that?" And then they said, "How would

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you feel if you gave that $25 to somebody else?" And and everybody went quiet because they'd all been, "Well, yeah, I've been

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pretty selfish." And and the good feeling that we get from doing the right thing for others is so much better for us. Yeah.

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And that's why I tell people just go do the right thing at that moment with that other human being. And when you finish

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taking care of 20 or 25 patients in a day, even if it's been hard, when you put your head on the pillow, you ought to feel pretty damn good about yourself and about going back tomorrow.

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So, not only do we have the same haircut, not only just saying, but we also think like this is scary how

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alike we are in this, you know, sort of along these lines. So, I'm I'm moving I I if I What's your why?

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Oh, you just flipped it on I did my why. So I I I did this I did this uh this interrogation with uh Simon Synie.

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He sat down and kind of broke me down. Yeah.

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My why is to inspire people to do the work necessary to be greater than they ever thought they could be.

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That's that's you know that I just want to I'm I'm trying to get people to do the work. Not not just inspire them because that's different if you just be

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inspire but to actually get that work done uh is very different. And now I forgot what I was going to ask you.

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Oh yes. So, I'm trying to get everybody to move away from engagement and satisfaction. Like, I'm like, "Wait a

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second. As a parent, I'm never satisfied, right? In my life, I'm never satisfied, but I'm always fulfilled." And that's what you're talking about.

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You're talking about the idea of listen, the reason you do it is because there's some fulfillment around healing and helping other people.

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Yes. So, in in that way, I have been insensitive

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in trying not to acknowledge burnout because I feel like if you're fulfilled, I hate that word. Yeah. Oh, I see I This is my thing.

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Like, I hate the word.

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And if you tell me you're morally injured one more time because epic wasn't customized for you, we're going to have to have a conversation.

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How do we How do we figure out Yeah, we have to say that out loud.

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Yeah. How do we figure out how to get people to focus on their fulfillment and the idea that I take, you know, my, you know, my $25 gives it to somebody away

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from me me me, which is, you know, I think where that other kind of mindset comes from.

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This goes back to the village and and how we raise people because if the only thing you've ever learned is it's about

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me, it's very hard to change you once you've gone through medical school. But but but raising a nation of people who remember that there's a greater good.

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Boy, that we've got to change that whole culture. Um do you ever see the movie Doctor Strange?

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Yeah. So at the end of the movie when the mystic is dying and she's slowed down time and she tells him, "You now's your time to be the leader." And he

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goes, "I'm not ready." And she says to him, "And all along this whole thing, you've missed the most important lesson.

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It's not about you. Yes.

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And we've we've shied away from saying that that a nation is a nation of people. It's not individuals. And and

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what binds us together, what created all of this and what can what can help us again is that reminder of that you want

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to feel good, go do good. But don't do good for you. Go do good for somebody else. That's that's how you'll feel good

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even when things are hard. Yeah, I watch and I I challenge a number I challenge all the early career folks. I

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put up a picture and it's a picture of a woman who's free climbing this rock who I don't know how she's still attached to the rock because she's 45 degrees upside down.

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And I say to them, "How many of you climb or ride or run marathons?" And and every one of them raises their hand

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about something. And I go, "And when it gets really hard, you quit, right? you just whine and quit. And they go, "No."

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And they go, "No." And I go, "Why?" Because when you push through hard, there's a really good feeling there.

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That sense of accomplishment, that sense of I overcame. That's part of how you can feel better. The other part is go do

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good for other people. That will balance all the crap that we have to deal with in our career. If all you focus on is the crap, that's all you're going to

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feel. Do you feel like that advice that you have now right after you've been through, you know, all of the career

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challenges and the personal challenges, is that the same advice you would give to your younger self? Are there moments

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where in your younger self, your younger life, where that advice would have helped?

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Yeah, I I mean, I got I got humbled early on. So, I I think I always carried that sense

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of, huh, there's there's more to this than me. And maybe I got lucky in some ways, but that's the message that I I I

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just see how we are, particularly parents, and again, I watch them focus

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more on did my kid get as many at bats as another kid versus did my kid learn some skills today?

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Yeah. Um, we have a lot of work to do just in terms of how we raise each other as a community.

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The the one piece of advice, sometimes I get asked this question, so I'll just give it to you. I get asked by particularly medical students, what's the one piece of advice you would give

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me as I start this journey and what I say to them is very simple. I said, be the person who when everybody else

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looks at the schedule and sees your name goes, today's going to be a good day.

30:33

just to focus on that because you're all smart. You're going to know the medicine, but focus on being that person that everybody else smiles when you walk in the room.

30:43

It's the parking lot biopsy. Yes.

30:45

It's you look at the parking lot and you're like, "Oh," you either go, "Oh." Or you're like, "It's going to be great.

30:50

We're we're going to knock you out." But but looking at whose name is on the schedule going, "We're going to be okay today." Doesn't matter what happens.

30:57

Doesn't matter how busy it is. Doesn't matter how sick people are. If I'm working with Dr. Tomlinson, we're going to be okay today.

31:04

Let's go be that person.

31:06

So, I ask everybody on the this podcast uh a question um and ask what what is your superpower?

31:13

And I I have I'm tempted to answer for you because I mean I'm inspired by just the time that we spend here together. Yeah.

31:21

Um but what would you say your super Now just qualify it. Your superpower is something that is uniquely you. You don't lose any energy when you when you

31:29

do it. And it's something that others would say, "Yeah, that's that's Tony's superpower." Yeah. Mine is the I I'm I will refuse to back down to fight the right fight.

31:41

So I will describe what's it like being ASAP president. I feel like I'm David and I fight 12 Goliaths every day. And you know what? On a good day, I may knock I might knock one of them down.

31:52

And on a really good day, I survive to wake up tomorrow and do it all again.

31:56

A reminder, David did win. I'm just, you know, just putting it out there. [laughter] Just putting it out there. I think you've won.

32:03

There's a reason why a couple there's a reason why there's only one story of David and Goliath in the Bible. Cuz all the other Davids, we didn't hear about.

32:10

We didn't hear about the They got crushed by Goliath. They got crushed.

32:13

But but but the specialty matters. It matters to everybody who's ever going to

32:19

come who needs our care. and and I'm I will fight to my last breath to make

32:26

sure that this specialty gets respected and valued the way it should. But more importantly, I want the people who are

32:34

coming, who are choosing this to know they chose the hardest but the most noble specialty. And I want them to be

32:42

proud of that. And I want them to feel good about it. And I want them to know they can change the world one patient at a time.

32:49

I love it. One one patient at a time. I I tell people all the time in our strategic plan, we talk about the goals that the board holds me accountable to.

32:57

And everybody's so surprised when I tell them I don't have any topline financial goals, but the lines that the goals that I do have is I have to add more lives

33:06

that I've improved and I have to have more we call ourselves vitans. I have to add more vitens because if you have what what I call affinity, if you're drawing

33:15

people to you, it's kind of like the parking lot biopsy. If people are coming to me, you know that there's something that I'm doing in the world that is worthwhile, right?

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33:28

I do want to ask you um something though about all the things you said back to

33:30

the community up through emergency medicine up to advising residents but also you know pre- res you know middle school students.

33:39

Yeah. Is your view of the future in respect to healthcare, but even otherwise, is it an optimistic one or are you worried?

33:48

I I'm going to hem and han and say both, but I'm optimistic that if we I'll say kind of wake up and realize

33:57

that the only way the future gets better is to somewhat go back to what got us here, that our strength is together,

34:06

right? And and anytime people feel alone, whether it's David or whoever else, that's a pretty tough place to be. But you're not alone.

34:14

Yeah.

34:14

Right. And that's what I want even in the specialty, I want every medical student who's considering emergency medicine, and I say this, you are never

34:22

alone. Even if you're working in a shift by yourself somewhere else, you're never alone. That there is this whole nation of of emergency physicians behind you.

34:31

that that that's I I'm optimistic that that return to the sense of togetherness and that there's a greater good. I I I

34:40

think today's young people do want to do good. I think we need to help them understand that the collectiveness of

34:47

that and and to focus on the things that unite us. Yes.

34:52

You know, humans share 99.99% of the same DNA. the the the percentage of our DNA that makes us look different

35:00

and sound different is such so minor in overall in in being human. Why do we

35:07

focus sometimes on the things that that divide us rather than all of the things that bind us together?

35:13

100% agree 100. I mean, I joke about being Italian till I was 12, you know, and I went to New York. Well, you know,

35:20

what you call Canada, the other Canada, but I went to upstate New York and uh I found out pretty quickly that why I was Canadian, you know, because I I mean,

35:28

all of us were we were from everywhere, you know, nobody really had an advantage or, you know, had anything that was um

35:35

special uh or different or privilege, but we all respected the fact that our cultures, mine happens to be Jamaican,

35:44

but that that was amazing, you know, uh you know, Leo was Italian, you know, uh Pascal was from Pakistan. Like those

35:52

things that were uniquely important to their cultures, it wasn't a thing to be able to say, "Oh, you're different." Is a thing to say, "Look, we're Voltron, you know, now we're aging ourselves.

36:02

We're aging ourselves, but we're Voltron, you know, or we're we're uh we're t we're um what is it?

36:07

Thundercats, you know, we're coming together. we're better together, you know, and uh and that that piece I feel like

36:14

in all the you know, and I don't want to I don't want to get political, but in all the I think winning that goes on in political contests, just the winning.

36:24

It's just the winning I won. I think some at some point it's lost to people that hey man I I've had a deeper conversation

36:33

with you today and my bond with you is a thousand times deeper than it was 30 minutes or 40 minutes before we started.

36:41

And that and that probably happens 98% of the time. Yeah. Of course 2% of the time you meet somebody you're like you're not cool but that's probably rare.

36:50

Yeah. It it's because you gave because you listened. Yes.

36:54

Right. And and the politics of today that gets in the way of good policy is we stopped listening and all we do is yell louder.

37:02

Yes.

37:02

And and the only we only listen to those who say what we want to hear.

37:07

And so I will joke and say if the only voices I listen to today are the ones in my own head and there are many.

37:15

How can I learn anything new? Yeah. I already know this stuff. Yeah.

37:19

Your point about well tell me about Jamaica, right? How would I ever know about Jamaica unless you told me something, right? While you learn about being

37:27

Italian, right? That's the beauty of being different is that together we we then have a collective knowledge that we didn't have.

37:37

Yeah.

37:38

So you have a bunch of people out here who are, you know, I would say the people that digest us in this podcast

37:45

are people who are struggling, living inside of a box, wanting to break out, wanting to disrupt it, wanting to be different, wanting to impact the world

37:53

even though people think that they can't. As they are out there, what would you say to them? What advice would you give them? Um, you know, sort of as a

38:01

final thought. Um, you are I'm going to go back to you are not alone. And the anal the example I'll use is that when

38:10

you or I or anybody else on this planet sees somebody wearing a pink ribbon, we all know what that pink ribbon means.

38:18

So you wearing the pink ribbon announces to the world, I care about breast cancer. Then the only question I have to

38:25

ask you is who? Is it you or is it a family member? Is it a friend? But I know what you care about. If we

38:32

announced what we cared about a little bit more openly, then people would know, oh well, I care too. And well, now you

38:40

realize if you want to change the world, you're not the only person trying to fix a problem that you that there's a whole

38:47

army. If you have a if your why is whatever it is, even in healthcare, so if your why is you think we should take

38:55

a better care better care of patients with mental illness, you're not alone.

38:59

And it can seem overwhelming, but the minute you put on your green ribbon, because I know that's the one that we would wear, you go, "Oh, well, what do

39:07

you think?" And now you don't have to feel like the world is overwhelming because you're not alone. That that's the message I want people to know that

39:16

the way to make things better is to be comfortable saying, "I care about something and I'm willing to do the work to make it better."

39:24

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am not alone. I'm here with Tony Zerillo and he is an amazing human being. He just so happens to also be the ASAP president.

39:34

Um but I've learned so much about you today. Thank you for spending the time.

39:38

I know this is I know you're a busy person, but I think honestly um when we release this, I know that there are people that are going to be inspired um

39:45

by the fact that you got to speak to them directly. So, thank you for coming by.

39:48

Thank you for the opportunity and the kind words, my friend. Yes. Awesome. Awesome.

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