Episode 14
"My Dad's a Rural Surgeon!" with Charlotte Lehman
Episode Transcript
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:00:07] Welcome to the Rural American Surgeon. I'm your host, Dr. Randy Lehman. On this show, you'll receive powerful insights and resources for rural surgeons. I'm a general surgeon in northwest Indiana, and this show is tailored around the nuts and bolts of rural general surgery practice. But you'll find topics ranging from practical surgical tips to a host of others, including rural lifestyle, finance, training, practice models, and more.
We'll have a segment called Classic Rural Surgery Stories where you'll get a feel for how practice in the country differs from the city. Whether you're a surgeon, other specialist, or primary care, or simply someone interested in healthcare for rural America, I'm glad you're here. Now let's get into the show.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:00:46] Hello, listener. Welcome back to another episode of the Rural American Surgeon. Today we have a very special guest. We have a daughter of a rural surgeon, Charlotte Lehman. Welcome, Charlotte. Thanks for being here.
Charlotte just turned eight yesterday, and obviously Charlotte's my daughter. I'm doing a series called the Children of the Rural American Surgeon. And I want to know what's the perspective of the child that grows up as a rural American surgeon? Because I think there is a difference, and I think there's some lifestyle things that you can do as a rural surgeon.
One of my partners says, you know, when his kids were in school, they didn't even know that he worked, which I think is tongue in cheek. But he says, you know, he was there when his daughter went to school, and he was there when she got home. And so just the overall practice was not so burdensome, and he wasn't spending 24-hour night shifts on trauma call or anything like that.
And so we're going to talk a little bit about just what our day-to-day life looks like. And then I'm going to interview a few other adult children of some rural surgeons that I know, some of which have gone into medicine, and we'll put a little mini-series together for you on this topic. Have you ever been to your dad's work before?
Charlotte: [00:01:59] Yeah, so many times.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:01] So many times. All in one place? He always works in the same spot?
Charlotte: [00:02:04] No.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:05] What's your dad do?
Charlotte: [00:02:07] Do lots of gross surgeries.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:08] Gross surgeries? You're kidding me. What's the grossest surgery that I do?
Charlotte: [00:02:12] Gallbladders.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:14] Gallbladders, man, you've got to be kidding me. And tell me about when you go visit your dad. So what do you do when you're at work? When you... is he... are you going into surgery and scrubbing in with him and helping?
Charlotte: [00:02:25] Ew. No, not but...
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:27] What do you do? I just...
Charlotte: [00:02:30] Sometimes I stay for small surgeries, but I don't...
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:33] When we were in Minnesota, do you remember seeing me in the morning?
Charlotte: [00:02:37] Nope.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:38] Did you see me at night?
Charlotte: [00:02:40] Barely. I didn't see you at all? Pretty much only like, once a week.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:47] Residency's hard. How about now? Do you see me in the morning?
Charlotte: [00:02:51] Sometimes. If you don't get called in early.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:02:53] What if your friend came to you and said, "Hey, I'm thinking about being a rural general surgeon?" What would you say?
Charlotte: [00:02:58] I am, too?
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:00] You're thinking about it, too?
Charlotte: [00:03:01] Yeah.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:02] No way. Hi, guys. This is Brittany. I don't know. Did you ever get introduced before?
Brittany: [00:03:07] No, not yet.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:08] Okay. This is Brittany, my wife. This is BNR Ranch. So we're asking Charlotte about a few questions about what it's like to be the daughter of a rural surgeon. And I asked her some questions about residency. Where you... Did you hear that? So I... It's kind of painful to hear her say it, actually. But I said, you know, how often did I... Did she see me in the morning and how often did she see me at night? And now she was a lot younger. That was four years ago. So she was like zero to four during residency?
Charlotte: [00:03:40] No, like, we moved when I was...
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:42] When you were four?
Charlotte: [00:03:43] Yeah.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:44] Five.
Charlotte: [00:03:45] No, not five. I remember being four when we were in Indiana.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:03:50] Yeah. But tell me about some differences between residency and now and urban versus rural practice.
Brittany: [00:04:01] I mean, you were gone a lot during residency, working really hard, trying to learn all the stuff that you needed to, I guess. And then when we got back, it was a little slow at first and then kind of picked up, but then you kind of reaching out to the... Not just our area that we were living, but reaching out to the other rural locations and really started showing them, you know, how important it is to have that care in your small towns. And I appreciate it, too, especially when it comes to family members, I guess. What was your other question? Sorry.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:04:43] No, I was saying difference between rural and urban practice because, like, to me, some of the biggest benefits to the rural practice is not having to travel.
Brittany: [00:04:53] Is a big thing for a lot of the people here.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:04:55] But how the actual surgeon and their family get affected by the rural practice versus an urban practice, because if you're in a trauma center, you kind of have to be there, and you have to be in house 24/7 call, for example, level one trauma center. So somebody's got to be there, and that's appropriate, and it needs to be that way. But it's obviously not like that for me. I just came off a week of call and I got zero consults for the entire week.
Brittany: [00:05:23] Yeah, right.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:05:24] Sometimes people just don't need surgery when you're in it. And that's a county of 12,000 people. Now the average is about two to three consults a week is what I normally get. I probably do an average of two surgeries a week. It's usually an open gallbladder, draining a perianal abscess or thrombosis hemorrhoid, or abscess somewhere else in the body.
The thing is that we don't have an ICU at any of the critical access hospitals that I operate at. And there's knowing your limitations. And so if you have that perforated duodenal ulcer, you're not going to be doing that case there either. So the things that really wake me up and bring me in in the middle of the night are like esophageal food impactions. I have to do a fair amount of those, but a lot of the other ones, we just put them on at 6 o'clock the next morning.
And really like, as a lifestyle goes, I spend every night in my own bed with my family. I spend, I get up some mornings, yeah, five, six o'clock and I go in if I started, start my day at 7 or whatever. But a lot of times I start at 8:30 or whatever. I can get the kids to school sometimes. I get off in good time and if I don't, it's usually my own fault.
And so there's a lot of flexibility, there's a lot of feedback from the community and just thankfulness. And you're actually like a person that's in the community that's a recognized person rather than just sort of being part of the academic medical thing. So that's sort of what I was getting at because it's so small, it's easy for me to know where they're at and bring them in. And then when I had my own office, that obviously I do whatever I want to in an office when I'm working for somebody else, I have to be, you know, respectful of their space and everything, but they're able to get a perspective of what I do. And when I grew up, I was on a farm and then my dad took a job with a construction company. I was able to go with him and I feel like that.
Charlotte: [00:07:17] FBI.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:07:18] Yeah, at FBI building. And so that just helped me to see, you know, whereas if you're just kind of gone and then you come back, the kid doesn't really get to see what you're doing. If it wasn't for that, I'd have a hard time working at all, because I'd have to do something where, like, my family's sort of integrated with what I'm doing.
Charlotte: [00:07:41] Like, in Minnesota, you were always gone, and I only got to see you, like, maybe sometimes zero times a week, and then.
Brittany: [00:07:48] That's not true.
Charlotte: [00:07:49] But mostly one time a week.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:07:51] I never saw you zero times a week. Okay. But I did see you zero times.
Charlotte: [00:07:56] No, when we went to church, that was pretty much.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:00] Church was our big family day on Sunday. About every other week, basically.
Charlotte: [00:08:04] Yes. I usually saw you two days a week and it not. And it had to be a certain day. No, we would just, like, Sunday and then Sunday.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:12] But you did come into the hospital and visit me there, too, right?
Brittany: [00:08:15] Yeah, a lot.
Charlotte: [00:08:16] That was fun.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:16] And then we would sometimes get dinner or coffee across the street from the hospital, too. Right. All right, Charlotte, did you have anything else that you wanted to talk about today? No, nothing.
Charlotte: [00:08:30] I want to go home and do sewing.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:32] Do sewing?
Charlotte: [00:08:33] Yeah.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:33] Cause you got a little sewing machine for your birthday.
Charlotte: [00:08:36] Yeah. And pottery.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:38] You got to speak up louder and be very clear with your enunciating and talking to the microphone. Right?
Charlotte: [00:08:43] Yeah.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:44] What are you doing when you go home?
Charlotte: [00:08:46] I'm doing sewing.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:50] Okay. Shout out us. All right. Do you have any chores to do when you get home?
Charlotte: [00:08:56] No, Grandpa already did that.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:08:59] Grandpa did the. What chores do you normally have to do?
Charlotte: [00:09:03] Pigs, chickens, and cows.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:09:05] Tell me what you have to do exactly.
Charlotte: [00:09:08] I don't want to do it because I want to go home and play.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:09:14] All right. Do you have to scoop out the pen every day?
Charlotte: [00:09:17] No.
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:09:18] Some days, though. Yeah.
Charlotte: [00:09:21] Do I have to?
Dr. Randy Lehman: [00:09:22] Oh, yeah. All right, Charlotte. Well, I think you did a great job on this episode, and I really appreciate you being here, and you're welcome back anytime if you want to be on the Rural American Surgeon. So thanks for joining.
