Doc Discussions with Dr. Jason Edwards
THIS is the podcast you have been looking for! "Doc Discussions" are just what the title says they are: physicians from a wide range of specialties, talking about relevant, up-to-date medical topics, not to mention tips on habits to help you live your best life. Your host, Jason Edwards, MD, is a board-certified radiation oncologist with a PhD in cellular and integrative physiology at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Edwards explores not only diseases but also suggests techniques to optimize mental and physical health for a long and good life. Real people. Real advice. Real good. This is Doc Discussions, with Dr. Jason Edwards!
Doc Discussions with Dr. Jason Edwards
When Doctors Become Patients: A Surgeon's Life-Changing Heart Valve Story
What happens when a successful surgeon suddenly finds himself on the operating table? Dr. John Mason shares his extraordinary journey from Olympic-caliber rower to heart surgery patient in this revealing conversation that bridges the gap between physician and patient perspectives.
Dr. Mason's story begins with his background as a Division I collegiate rower who competed at elite levels, even trying out for the Olympic team. Years later, while carrying his toddler up a hill at a family picnic, he experienced what he thought was a bug in his shirt—actually atrial fibrillation signaling a serious heart valve problem. Despite being in heart failure, his exceptional physical fitness masked his symptoms so effectively that he continued winning rowing competitions right up until his diagnosis.
The psychological impact of facing open-heart surgery as a young surgeon with small children offers profound insights into the vulnerability all patients experience. Dr. Mason candidly discusses his decision-making process, complications that required a second surgery, and the humbling recovery that transformed his approach to medicine. "I was as weak as a cat afterward," he reveals, describing how rebuilding strength took not weeks but nearly a year.
This experience fundamentally changed how Dr. Mason treats his own patients. Rather than offering vague recovery instructions, he now provides concrete guidance: "Get outside, feel the sunshine, feel the wind blow, hear the birdies sing." His personal mantra—"keep your legs moving, your belly full, and your chin up"—encapsulates his holistic approach to healing. When patients claim he can't understand their situation, he can genuinely respond, "I know exactly what you're going through."
Listen to this powerful conversation that reminds us how personal struggles can transform professional practice, and why compassion from healthcare providers means everything when facing life's most challenging moments.
Hello, this is Jason Edwards and this is Doc Discussions. I'm here with Dr Mason John Mason, our Chief of Surgery, and this is our second episode with Dr Mason. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2:Just fine, thanks for having me again.
Speaker 1:This is great. And so, after our first episode, when we turned the mics off, you and I had a very interesting conversation and I thought you know, this is something we should probably record you were a collegiate athlete in rowing. Is that right? That's correct. And where were you rowing? At UC Santa Barbara, and that's a Division I college, yeah, and not all colleges have rowing, and so I'm sure I would assume that the ones that do are actually, you know, have fairly good rowers, because there's In general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a significant commitment for all the equipment. And you know, I think most programs that have a rowing program, you know they're not just going to get like you know, sort of one or two boats. It's a little bit of an all or none proposition. So it's either they're going to have a rowing program or not. It's interesting Rowing is actually the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States.
Speaker 1:Okay, I would assume Harvard's one of the first colleges and they probably had it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first, and not just of rowing but of any sport included baseball, basketball, football, everything. The very first athletic competition between two schools was rowing. Okay, and it was Harvard-Yale back, I think the year was 1846.
Speaker 1:Okay, so before some of these sports were even invented. Oh yeah, yeah exactly. And so I'm going to fast forward a little bit. So after college you were actually in the Olympic trials, Is that?
Speaker 2:correct. Well, yeah, so I didn't quite make it that far. So during my collegiate rowing I rowed three years in college. I unfortunately developed a shoulder injury during my third year that required surgery. But after my second year and after my third year I tried out for the national team and there were sort of three tried out for the national team and there were sort of three, um, uh well, three modes of assessment, if you will. You did six minutes on a rowing machine, okay, and this was kind of a bizarre rowing machine to say.
Speaker 2:Rowing machines are very commonplace now, especially the concept two, which we have one here in the first floor of this building, thanks to uh, and that is, and that's, um, you know, crossfit gyms use the concept to rower. I mean, you know, you see them in gyms and people's houses everywhere. Um, this was, you know, the mid 80s in. Concept two was that company was just starting and I can't even remember the name of the rowing machine, but the, the coach, the united states olympic coach, was a guy named Chris Korzenowski who was a Pole, he was from Poland, spoke, you know, sort of OK English and he had this Polish rowing machine that he kind of brought over. It's like oh no, this is what we will test all the athletes on.
Speaker 2:So we had to do a six minute, you know piece, or six minutes on the rower. You know try and you know pull as hard and fast as you could over that six minutes. And then you had to do what's called a bench pull, basically where you're laying on a bench and you, you know it's basically weightlifting, kind of a bent over row, but on a bench, facing prone, facing down with 90 pounds in six minutes. See how many times you could do that. And then the other component was flexibility. Just seeing how flexible you were and everything. So you made it somewhere through the process.
Speaker 2:I did very well in the flexibility and on the, the rowing, uh, with the barbell, my, my rowing machine, time was was kind of okay, but it but it wasn't competitive enough to make it to the next. You know, that was sort of the screening yeah, thing. You went through that initial screening and then, if you made it past that, then they invited you back to philadelphia, which was sort of the screening thing. You went through that initial screening and then, if you made it past that, then they invited you back to Philadelphia, which was sort of the center of United States rowing at the time. I think currently it might even it moved to Indianapolis and Oklahoma of all places. I'll be honest, I'm not sure where. I think it's in Chula Vista, california now.
Speaker 2:They go to kind of bizarre places.
Speaker 1:So in any places, and so you were rowing and staying very exercising a lot. And then you were like at a fair or at a park and you noticed you were having some heart issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was many years later. So, yeah, just you know I kind of joke around that maybe the shoulder injury I got, you know, was sort of the best thing that happened, at least to my surgical career. I was sort of toying with the idea of medical school at the time and then it's like, well, okay, I have to set up my senior year of rowing. What else am I going to do? I mean, the book's hard and study for the MCAT, got into Washington University for medical school, came here and then, you know, did med school, residency and so on, enjoyed rowing, and there's actually so that going to to Wash U of course meant that I moved from um, california to St Louis. So I've been here ever since then. But there is a rowing club here in St Louis, a very good one, uh is as, especially as far as the high school program, but they have masters rowing too. So I rode with them for many years and then, um, yeah, right around me turning 40, um, uh, I was um with a, um, a group of guys we're really competitive. I, I was, you know what one of my at age 40 we would have these, um, uh, indoor rowing competitions, which is kind of a big, big thing and we did it with washington university and I beat all the college kids, you know. So I was very proud of that.
Speaker 2:But shortly after that, uh, yeah, I was at a picnic with my family. My son was you know who's bigger than I am now, you know was a you know that little toddler. I was carrying him up this hill and I thought a bug flew in my shirt. Uh, it's like, oh, what's this shaking in my shirt? You know, something's in there, and I was in atrial fibrillation. Um, went to st luke's. I I was, you know, a surgeon here at St Luke's at the time Went to the ER and they did an EKG and said, oh, sure enough, you're natral fibrillation, and then subsequently got an echocardiogram and I had mitral regurgitation, so one of my heart valves was leaking pretty significantly, but I had no symptoms. That's what really kind of surprised me. I had no shortness of breath. In fact, not only did I have no shortness of breath, I was, you know, competing competing in rowing, which is a very, you know, aerobically demanding sport, and I felt spectacular. So I almost didn't believe the results.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Uh, but I get you know. But the AFib was, you know, atrial fibrillation kind of convinced me, okay, well, something's going on, um. And so I saw um, saw one of our cardiologists here, dr Davison, who I'm still good friends with yeah, sure, glenn, he's a great cardiologist, total character, Yep, yep. And he said, well, you know you're doing well. And he put me on some medication that got me out of atrial fibrillation. Thankfully I did not have to be anticoagulated. So he said well, you know what you're doing, fine, minimal symptoms, let's just watch you for a while. We'll get another echocardiogram in six months, okay. So it's like okay.
Speaker 2:And then I never went back into afib. Actually, to this day I've never gone back into afib, you know, thankfully, um. But had the echo six months later. And I continued to be physically active, continued to do rowing races. In fact I won a single skull, one person boat competition down in atlanta, which was, you know or no, actually it was Chattanooga, okay, really huge competition. I was, you know, just absolutely thrilled. And then I had my repeat echo and they said, oh, it's gotten way worse and you're actually in heart failure now, which I just couldn't believe because I still felt completely fine. So the writing was on the wall. I had to get the valve repaired um so this is an open heart surgery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, this is no small surgery, correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, this was 2005 or no, I'm sorry, 2006. So there were, you know, some institutions were just kind of exploring kind of less invasive ways, a catheter based right, right.
Speaker 1:But so so take me to your mental state. Now you've got, you're a doctor, you've started your practice and now you've got a beautiful wife and you've got two children that are tiny and this has to make you consider your own mortality, probably for the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's funny. You mentioned that I really the reality of it didn't sink in until the day of surgery and I remember talking to the anesthesiologist like, and I ended up having it at Missouri Baptist, nothing against St Luke's Great Heart Program. I'd been here maybe three years and I felt very I had these weird visions of you know, I don't know me, like dying in the intensive care unit and I was like, okay, I don't want to die in the hospital where I work. And I knew Dr Kachoukis from my residency training really well and I just said you know what? I think it's best if I just go offside.
Speaker 1:It's also awkward too, because in the OR you're completely naked too, and being around people you work with completely naked, you would think as a doctor it's not that big a deal, but it's not the most fun thought. That played into it as well, a little bit right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of the privacy aspect of it For sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was part of it. And so, yeah, the morning of the heart surgery, I remember my wife drove me to the hospital. I remember there was a pretty rainbow and it's like, okay, I think things are going to be okay. But again, just the whole reality. It just seemed so I felt fine. It really took a leap of faith for me because I, you know, usually you have some huge operation, you know you have, I don't know, blood in your stool or you're losing weight, or you feel terrible or something's going on.
Speaker 1:But you were in such good shape that your body was able to compensate for it. A mere mortal would have symptoms Correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that was probably the thing. So, um, so, in any event, yeah, um, yeah. I remember meeting the anesthesiologist, who's just an extremely nice guy, and it's like, oh, wow, this is real. And then, uh, yeah, then had the surgery, uh, everything went fine, went home, I think, in four days, but then, um, I did have, um, uh, pericardial tamponade about post-update 10 or so, and I'm going to explain to people what- that is.
Speaker 1:So there's a sac around the heart and that's where blood gets into that sac and starts putting pressure on the heart from the outside in, so the heart's not able to pump as effectively and so you have decreased blood flow throughout the body.
Speaker 2:Correct. And here is where I was the exception. Again, I remember I started not feeling well. It was a Saturday night. I again I remember I started not feeling well. It was a saturday night. Um, I was, you know, I'd been home for about you know five, six days, taking my daily walks. Everything was great. And it was a saturday. My wife had a birthday party to go to. I remember she felt really bad, just like, okay, I'm gonna go to this party for about two hours, are you okay by yourself? And I would. It was just me and the two kids, and my son was, I think, a year and a half or two. At the time he'd already gone to bed, so my five-year-old and I were just hanging out, um, and like, oh, we're fine, we'll be fine you know lauren will take care of me.
Speaker 2:And um, yeah, I I remember getting up and was walking across and I start getting nauseated and I collapsed and my five-year-old was there and she like ran and got like a washcloth and I kind of came up and she's like, oh, are you okay? Are you okay? And um, and she called my wife, who came home right away. You know, this is, you know, early cell phone days and then I kind of felt better. It's like okay, yeah, I'm not sure you know what's going on, but I think I'm okay. And then started throwing up during the night. No chest pain, no shortness of breath.
Speaker 1:Can I stop you? Here for a second, People surgeons have this kind of a soldier on mentality which serves them well in their training and through tough cases. Yeah, but on a personal level sometimes it does not serve you well, Correct?
Speaker 2:And I think that's what's going on here.
Speaker 1:And it can't. It's kind of a you know airline pilots. They talk kind of. In a way it's surgeons kind of act in a way like that and the training ingrains that in within you, which is good. But this is probably what's happening here You're soldiering on and not paying attention to the obvious signs.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah. And then the next morning, sunday morning, I still felt pretty terrible and you know we're thinking maybe I have a stomach flu, but my wife is, you know, we're going back to the hospital. So we went to the, you know, went to the emergency department. It's a Sunday morning, there's nobody around and at the ER doc happened to be someone my wife's also a physician, someone that my wife trained with at Jewish hospital when Jewish hospital was its own entity. Yeah, dr Brown, a wonderful guy, mary, why are you here?
Speaker 2:It's like oh well, john just had surgery and I remember I'm sitting there in the waiting room and my main symptom was nausea, and so they kind of triaged me. You know I'm there and like there's, you know, teenagers with, you know, sprained ankles getting in ahead of me and I'm sitting there, you know kind of nauseated feeling, you know terrible, but no chest pain or shortness of breath. And then she said, well, he just had heart surgery. Well, is he having chest pain, shortness of breath? No, oh, okay, he can go sit over there. Yeah, you're on the back burner now yeah.
Speaker 2:And so thankfully, this ER doc saw us and kind of got us back there, back to the, and then the PA of my heart surgeon, you know, came to see me and it's like, well, okay, my heart surgeon, you know, came, came to see me and it's like, well, okay, you know, I, you know, you seem to be all right. Liver enzymes were up a bit, so they admitted me to the hospital, got an ultrasound of the gallbladder they were thinking that was that. Then I started vomiting again. They put an ng tube in, uh, and then that we didn't get an echo for whatever reason, for about a day and a half. Yeah, yeah, they got an echocardiogram. They're like, uh, you got some fluid around your heart and so I had to go back to surgery just to get a chest tube put in, basically to drain that fluid. And my heart surgeon came like, uh, that's the biggest diffusion I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:So yeah so I felt better, but it took a long time to bounce back from that this makes me think of two things.
Speaker 1:One is, um, this is the advantage of being in good shape. Yes, you know like, if you are strong, if you're healthy, you're able to sustain significant medical issues and get past it. And so that's the reason you need to keep yourself in good shape. When you do get sick which everybody will you can say well, I've done everything right. Why am I sick? And the better way to look at it is you know what I'm strong going into this. I've kept myself in good shape and that will help me get through this better, correct?
Speaker 1:The other thing is absolutely being married and having a wife to tell you hey, we're going to the hospital is so I encourage young men to get married because it typically leads to a longer life. Oh yeah, yeah, that's very predictive as. So take me through how you felt like mentally and emotionally, as you're going through that, and when you considered the prospect that this may limit the length of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I don't think I ever really felt necessarily like, okay, this is going to shorten my lifespan. I did have some heart surgeons say and so the original surgery I I had thankfully the my valve was so they're able to repair the valve. So I had what's called a mitral valve repair. Okay, I did not have to get a prosthetic valve. Now they did what's called an annuloplasty, basically the kind of circular area where the, where the valve resides, was a little bit wider than it should be. So they tightened that up with a ring anuloplasty, basically a little Gore-Tex ring but there's no prosthetic valve. So I did not have to be anticoagulated and in theory that should be kind of a life-lasting repair. I initially had actually one of our heart surgeons here who's not here anymore say oh yeah, you're going to have to have that redone in five or 10 years. And here we are, 20 years later, there's always a naysayer.
Speaker 1:There's always a naysayer, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so for that moment that led, that kind of ruined my lunch that day, I'm like what so?
Speaker 1:haters going to hate.
Speaker 2:But. But. So I would say I didn't then, nor do I now, feel like, okay, my life's going to be shortened because of this. But having gone from what I felt like I was in tip-top shape and I'm kind of on top of the world, you know, kind of with my job great job, you know, you know. You know as long as you have your health, you have everything right and you know. So that took a hit in the sense that after the surgery, obviously a huge operation, and then the second surgery to require it to drain that fluid around the heart, and I was just, as the saying goes, as weak as a cat afterwards, and that was difficult, that was really hard, yeah you got young kids, you want to play with them and you can't.
Speaker 2:And it was six to eight weeks and I'll say at that point I was 88% to 90% recovered. And then it was another six to 12 months till I really felt like kind of at the 100% level, maybe even a little longer than that. It took a long time.
Speaker 1:This is one thing concept that I remind people of all the time. When you lose strength and stamina so quickly when you're in the hospital, I don't care who you are, and it takes a long time to build it back up. And Warren Buffett has a joke on this. He says you can't get nine girls pregnant and have a baby in a month.
Speaker 2:Some things just take time.
Speaker 1:And that's. And so it's good to be realistic and patient and say, hey, I will get stronger by progressively overloading myself and doing a little bit more slowly, and get back. Do you feel like it made you a better physician going through this?
Speaker 2:all, without question, it's good because I can tell my you know, if you know, having either a urinary catheter or a chest tube or an ng tube, you know, nasogastric yeah, I've had all those things, yeah, and they're like, well, you don't know what it's like and I try not to be that guy that's like, oh well, let me tell you my story. You know, it's like, you know what I, I know exactly. I actually do know exactly what you're going through. So I, you know, I think you know not that I would want any of my fellow physicians to. You know, um, you know, against their will, go through anything like this. I, I think there used to be times during um medical student training that they put ng tubes in each other. Oh really, I think. Thankfully those days are gone. But no, I, I think, having gone through that, there was no question. It made me a lot more sympathetic to the plight.
Speaker 2:And again, obviously I'm a surgeon, that's my main focus. But I don't just leave it at that. I try and figure out, okay, how can we get these people active again, what's the best way. For sure, in the short term, let's set up a very specific plan, not just like oh yeah, you know, don't do anything for six weeks, it's like, okay, well, that's not very helpful, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I tell almost all my patients, if they're good enough to go home, they're good enough for a daily walk. Yeah, and I'm not, you know, since I'm, you know, focused on abdominal type stuff. They can usually get out of bed and bear weight and so they can get outside. As I tell them, get outside, feel the sunshine, feel the wind blow, hear the birdies sing. You know, just, you know it's, you know, you know all those things are very positive, and if you just make it to the neighbor's mailbox and back, that's great. Yeah, that's the first day. The next day, make it to two neighbors, uh, a ways yeah, just a little bit of the strength that counts is the lower extremity strength.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you know doing curls at the gym indefinitely will do nothing for you in life, but having strong legs and your glutes and your core strong that will get you through a hard time and psychologically.
Speaker 1:Just going for a walk and breathing the fresh air and feeling the sunshine is so good for you, and so I do the same thing with my patients too. I have kind of a mantra. I say keep your legs moving, your belly full and your chin up because I'm trying to fatten my patients up because they're going through cancer treatments.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing that you know, being a patient and realizing if you have a good doctor when I've been a patient I was fortunate enough to have very good doctors and just the their, their confidence, the reassuring me, it, it it like meant the world, because I was.
Speaker 2:I was afraid.
Speaker 1:I mean I was trying to pretend like I wasn't but like I was afraid, and having somebody come in and put their hand on me and say, hey, you know we're going to be okay here. We've just got to kind of go this way or that way. But just hang in there, right? You know, when you say it as a doctor, you're like I don't know if that resonates with anybody but man as a patient you're like, thank God that this guy's here for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree completely. Well.
Speaker 1:John, I appreciate you sharing your story with us. I think it's a unique perspective when you're a physician and then you become a patient, especially when it's something so significant, and I think there's kind of plenty of lessons to be learned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, thank you, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure, yeah, thanks.