Joining me in the studio today is Dr. Richard Heard from gastroenterology and associates.
Troy thompson: welcome to on the beat.
I'm troy thompson.
Joining me in the studio today is dr. richard heard from gastroenterology and associates.
Welcome to the show, my friend.
Nice to see you.
Dr. heard: good to see you too, troy.
Troy thompson: okay.
I want to talk very briefly how covid-19 has affected you and your family?
And what are you doing to stay positive in the midst of this pandemic?
Dr. heard: yeah, i mean, as everybody's experienced, sure, it's been a big impact on our family.
Kids at home.
Wife is now teacher as well.
And being isolated at home a lot too.
Trying to follow the rules has been tough in some circumstances.
But everybody's done really well through that, it seems like too.
Troy thompson: that's great to hear.
Now let's talk business, shall we?
And putting all of your patients' minds at ease, how has covid-19, and as i said this pandemic, affecting your business and patient's state of mind?
Dr. heard: yeah.
Well, the business certainly has been less lately because we've been trying to keep patients home who don't have to have their procedures right now, to keep everybody safe.
So that had been kind of a slow down for us.
But there's still a lot of work to be done.
State of mind of the patients has been pretty good too.
Everybody's been real understanding of kind of the changes we've had to make.
Troy thompson: now we do know that if you are seeing some symptoms that both you and the other doctor, ricky, we do talk about if you do see symptoms, you can still come in.
Let's refresh everyone's memory on what some of those symptoms may be.
Dr. heard: sure.
If you're having just about any gastrointestinal symptom, let us know and we'll talk through whether it's something we need to do or not.
But of course, rectal bleeding is a big one.
That's one that doesn't need to be put off.
Bad stomach pain doesn't need to be put off.
Trouble swallowing, if food is getting stuck in your throat.
Don't put that off either.
Troy thompson: okay.
Now let's talk a little bit about procedures because as we know, the rules that have been put out by the government is elective surgeries are non-compliant right now.
So what are you doing?
Are you doing any procedures?
Dr. heard: yeah.
For patients with all those symptoms, we're doing the procedures.
But yeah, i mean elective stuff, certainly we're not doing that now.
But for the people who do need to come in, we have a lot of things that we've put in place that we're doing to make sure we keep those people safe.
Troy thompson: well, let's talk a little bit about this telemedicine.
We were that before we came on air and it's something that a lot of people are doing now, not just in medical industry, but in all forms. like we are now doing this interview via our homes.
How is that working for everyone?
And how is it possible to do telemedicine for something like procedures like colonoscopies?
Dr. heard: yeah.
Well you can't do the procedures over telemedicine.
We bring them in and their safe, but the rest of it is actually really effective.
And that's something that i hope that sticks after coronavirus is kind of this realization that telemedicine is good.
We have a history... we're learning how important history is.
Talking to your patients and getting them to explain things to you.
We always knew that, but we always weighed a little bit more physical exam too.
Listening to their heart and lungs.
And those things are all important.
But man, you can just get such good information from people over a video conference.
Troy thompson: i think people are a little bit more relaxed, right?
Dr. heard: oh yeah, absolutely.
We see the inside of people's homes.
They see the inside of my home.
It's a personal connection there too.
I do have a little bit of zoom burnout though, i have to admit that.
Troy thompson: we've all got to make sure our lighting is perfect, right?
Dr. heard: yeah.
Troy thompson: dr. richard, we appreciate you again.
Thank you for stopping by.
If you want to find out more information there, it all is up on the screen.
Gastroenterology associates of columbus.
Give them a call.
Back after this short break.
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