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Interviewer: Eating well is a crucial component for good health, but for a lot of us, it's a skill that we never really were taught or learned much about. The Utah Wellness Bus visits communities and offers free health screenings in addition to education to anybody who wants it. And if you visit the Wellness Bus, one of the people you might talk to is our guest today, clinical dietician Alex Marie Hernandez.

In today's interview, we're going to talk to Alex about tips that could help you eat healthier, some common barriers and misconceptions about eating well, and how a free nutrition counseling session from Utah Wellness Bus can help you understand about nutrition and help you improve your health.

Alex, let's go ahead and start with what could somebody expect during a nutrition counseling session if they visit you on the Wellness Bus?

Alex: Part of the sessions when somebody comes to see me for a nutrition or lifestyle coaching is that we take some time to get to know the client. So part of that includes a dietary assessment. So I ask them, "What do you normally eat? What does a normal day of eating look like for you?" And from there, I can then see what are some of the common foods that they eat? What are some of those that maybe we can improve?

Based off of that, then we go into different nutrition, education topics, right? So one thing that's very helpful is learning how to read a nutrition label, which is something that a lot of people aren't too familiar with. So just checking that nutrition label for things like added sugars.

And then a lot of times, if they are drinking something, for example, that has a lot of added sugars . . . Just yesterday, I had a client who mentioned that she was drinking a lot of vitamin water. She was like, "This is great. I'm getting lots of vitamins."

Interviewer: It sounds healthy.

Alex: Yeah. And then I'm like, "What brand is it? Let's take a look at this." So we look it up online, we look at the nutrition label, and it turns out it has like 26 grams of added sugars in one bottle. And she was having multiple every day.

So then we go through and we look at . . . we'll compare that to what the maximum amount that you should be having in a day is, and then they come to that realization, "Wow, I'm having a lot of added sugars and I didn't even know."

So things like that. The nutrition label is a very great tool in figuring out how to make healthier choices.

Interviewer: Do you find that a lot of not such great stuff is hiding in our food and we really need to do some research . . .

Alex: Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: . . . looking at that label to figure out what that is?

Alex: Mm-hmm. Because some things can be marketed as healthy. The label will make it seem like it's a healthy choice, but you look at that nutrition label and it turns out that's not the case.

One example that I talk to a lot about with clients is when it comes to breads, like whole wheat bread. It may say that, but you look at the nutrition label, look at the fiber content, and it actually doesn't have a lot of fiber. You look at the ingredients, whole grains is not one of the first ingredients. So that nutrition label is going to tell you the truth versus what's just marketed or advertised on that label in the front of the product.

Interviewer: And this is kind of a new phenomenon, isn't it? That you have to be aware of what's in your food. I would think many years ago, we made a lot of our meals from scratch, so we kind of knew what was in our food, but now you just really don't know. You do have to do that due diligence.

Alex: Yeah.

Interviewer: Give me a tip on how I can start that process, because it sounds a little overwhelming, right? I've got to know what I'm looking for, and then I've got to know how much of that thing that I can have and still be healthy. I've got to do all that math. So how do you make it simple for people? Or is there not a way to make it simple?

Alex: There is a way to make it simple. But I guess my tip here . . . I don't know if it's appropriate, but come to the Wellness Bus.

Interviewer: That's right. Take advantage of you.

Alex: Yeah. We can talk about it some more, because one of the things we offer as well in these sessions is this health coaching book. And it has a lot of great information, visuals, things are colorful, which makes it easier to understand.

So we go over those things. We point things out. We do some teach-back as well, like, "Well, now that we've learned this, can you tell me this?" So I really think taking the time to talk to someone who can walk you through that is going to be helpful. So come to the Wellness Bus.

Interviewer: And realize that it is complicated.

Alex: It is complicated, yeah.

Interviewer: I think some people might feel a little ashamed, like, "Well, I should understand this stuff," but it's not necessarily super easy to understand all the time.

Alex: Right. And I'm trying to think . . . I don't know if it's always taught in schools. I took a nutrition class in high school, which is where I became interested in nutrition, and that's where we went over the nutrition label. But even then, not too much in depth. It was later on when I studied more nutrition that I better understood how to use that nutrition label.

Interviewer: Right. You've this for how many years of schooling?

Alex: Oh, I took longer to get my Bachelor's, but . . .

Interviewer: But it's a Bachelor's degree, so . . .

Alex: Bachelor's plus Master's. In a few years, Master's will be required for all dieticians.

Interviewer: Okay. So I think that really illustrates how much there is out there to know that somebody could dedicate two degrees to it, right? So come to the bus and capitalize on that knowledge that you have.

Alex: Yes.

Interviewer: What do people think their nutritional challenges are generally, and do they align with what you know?

Alex: We work with a lot of diverse communities, right? So I think with that, a lot of people come to the bus thinking that their cultural foods are not healthy foods. And we want to highlight that you can still eat healthy within your cultural foods.

When they come to the United States, maybe they're presented with one way of eating, and that that's the only way of healthy eating. But that's not true. There are so many healthy foods across the world.

For example, the Mediterranean diet, right? That's one of the healthiest diets in the world. So it's just highlighting their staple foods and why those are healthy.

A lot of times, it just comes down to portion sizes, right? Maybe people are eating too much of one thing and not really balancing it out with the other nutrients that they need.

Interviewer: What are some of the barriers to good nutrition that you encounter? So we talked about just knowledge. Are there other barriers?

Alex: There are other barriers. For example, access to healthy foods. That's a big challenge. Sometimes, we'll talk about some . . . For an example, healthy fats like salmon, great source of healthy fats. But when I mention that, they'll say, "Oh, that's too expensive." So then we can talk about other sources of healthy fats as well, right?

Or even thinking about frozen or canned foods, it's okay to eat those foods. Again, just reading that nutrition label is going to help you make better choices there.

But we can also talk about food pantry, local resources, where they can go get more food if they're not able to afford that at the grocery store. And also just talking about how you can still eat healthy on a budget is important. So I think that access to foods is another big barrier that we encounter.

Interviewer: How about time to make meals at home? Is that a barrier?

Alex: That is another one as well, yeah. That's a good point. And there, we talk about ideas. Based on what they like, their food preferences, what are some quick, easy meals or even snacks that you can eat to incorporate more healthy eating?

One thing, for example, that I mention a lot is baby carrots are super easy to take with you as a way to add some more vegetable in your day. However, people don't think that. Maybe it's not as glamorous, but there are ways to do it. There are.

Interviewer: When somebody comes to the Wellness Bus, if they see it in their neighborhood and they want to come in and talk to a nutritionist there, you, is there something they should prepare? Should they come in with a list of what they've eaten for the past couple days? Is there anything else that they should come in with that could make the job a little bit easier, more productive?

Alex: I want to say that they don't have to prepare at all if it's going to make it easier for them to come in. No worries. Just come in. I'll ask you the questions to learn what I need to know to help you.

Interviewer: One of the programs on the bus is called Journey to Health. Tell me a little bit about that.

Alex: It's a nutrition education program. We're collaborating with the Nutrition Department at the University of Utah. It's six months long. There are four nutrition classes that a participant would go to. And then part of it is also to come see me, dietician on the bus, for two sessions. And then at the end, the participants gather together for a community meal to celebrate their successes and what they've accomplished throughout the program.

The program has been very well received by the community. People are loving it. Some of the classes include cooking demos. You get free gifts like kitchen items, which is wonderful. Learn how to shop around a grocery store and find healthy foods on a budget.

It's been something that people have really enjoyed. And when they come see me, they rave about the classes, like, "They were great. I love them. When are there more?" I was like, "Sorry, there were only four classes."

But it's great because they get a good foundation of healthy eating from the classes. And then when they come see me, we can talk more individualized about their specific situation, what's going on, and how we can set some goals specific to them. It's open to the community, so come check it out.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Scot: Mitch mentioned that he was using a product named Huel to Troy, and Troy and I went, "What?" We had no idea what he was talking about.

Troy: No idea.

Scot: Yeah. And he explained it to us a little bit and then had some questions that we couldn't answer about it, so we thought, "Well, let's get our nutritionist Thunder Jalili on the show."

So this is "Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation about men and men's health. We've got a good crew here. I love this crew. I love this crew right here. I provide the BS. My name is Scot Singpiel. He provides the MD. His name is Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: Thanks, Scot. We love you too.

Scot: And then we have Ph.D. Thunder Jalili. He knows so much about nutrition and how the body processes nutrition and does its nutrition thing. And I know I completely just undersold what you've spent your whole career doing, but let me just say Thunder is really smart about this stuff.

Thunder: That was a great introduction. I'll take it.

Scot: Okay. Yeah, you're great. And then we have Mitch.

Mitch: Hey.

Scot: He's a Hueligan, apparently, I've come to find out.

Mitch: Yeah. There's a t-shirt even that they sent me. It's a whole thing.

Scot: Yeah. So you ordered some of these Huel meal replacement products. Are they meal replacement products? What are they, Mitch?

Mitch: So you hear about them sometimes on podcasts, on some of the tech blogs that I read all the time. They were definitely invented by Silicon Valley tech bros for tech bros. All of the branding and everything is very, very much, "It is the world's number one complete food." It's not a meal replacement. It is a food.

And the kind of concept is that, "In this busy world that we're all in, you don't have time to think about your nutrition, your macros, what you're going to eat. So we have created a product that is a 'nutritionally complete meal' with an exact amount of calories, an exact perfect amount of," according to them, "macro distribution." It's vegetarian. There's supposed to be a ton of nutrients in it. It's all super foods. Who knows what's in it?

And it's okay. It's not the most delicious thing in the whole wide world, but it's okay. I don't know. I just was curious, how much of this is all hype to repackage the old SlimFast-style meal replacements of the '90s to today's tech culture? So I'm glad that we have Thunder on to kind of talk me through this.

Troy: Mitch, I'm curious. Do they market it as this is all you eat? Or you're on the go, you need a quick meal, you eat your Huel? Or is it just, "This is your food. This will sustain you and you will eat nothing else"?

Mitch: So there are a couple of brands out there that are not Huel that I have not tried that do market it as, "This is all you eat." You eat three shakes a day and you're perfect. All the nutrition your body needs. I couldn't really get behind that particular brand because the idea of just drinking a kind of earthy-tasting protein powder . . . It was like protein powder plus dirt plus a little bit of chocolate. Eating that three times a day, slurping that down was not my idea of a good time.

So the Huel and the reason I hopped on the Huel train was they have what is called their . . .

Scot: Is this your next t-shirt, the Huel Train?

Mitch: Choo-choo, all aboard.

Scot: He's in deep, guys. He's in deep. Intervention.

Mitch: Yes. But what I liked about the kind of marketing for the Huel is that they market it as, "This is a healthy lunch to have." They talk about how you can have their breakfast shake and their lunch and then have whatever you want for dinner. It's this idea of, "Don't go for fast food. Have this instead." And I appreciated that more than thinking I was joining some group of people who just don't like food anymore. I do like food. I don't know. I don't get it.

Troy: Well, I've got to tell you, Mitch, and I mentioned this to Scot off the air here, that I used to do a lot of cholesterol testing on people as part of a job I had. And this one guy, he was a tech guy, and I checked his numbers and I was blown away. I had never seen cholesterol numbers like he had. Crazy, crazy low LDL, crazy high HDL. I was like, "What do you eat?" He said, "Soylent. All I'll eat is Soylent." He said, "Totally on a Soylent diet." It was crazy.

Mitch: So he was doing the goop? He was doing the goop all day, and it was . . . Oh, my God.

Troy: Yeah. He was doing it all day, every day. That was all he ate. So he was not doing Huel like you're talking about it where it's like, "Hey, this is your healthy lunch and you can eat whatever you want for dinner." He was going all in. It sounds like some of these are marketing where it's just like, "24/7 this is all you eat." But the numbers were impressive. I will say that.

Mitch: That's crazy. Okay.

Thunder: That sounds like such a boring food culture.

Troy: It sounds horrendous, but . . .

Thunder: I know. It's like the Russian Gulag of eating.

Troy: Exactly. It's just like, "Eat your porridge."

Scot: I knew that Thunder was going to . . . Thunder is very pro-real food just because I think he enjoys the experience of eating real food.

Thunder: And it tastes good. You can make it taste good too. Isn't that a bonus?

Troy: I was going to say Thunder has already referred to me as the metronome of eating. These guys take it to a whole new level.

Thunder: That's right. You can set your watch by the way Troy eats.

Troy: That's right. But these guys, this was something else, the Soylent diet. And it sounds like probably some of these people that are doing Huel 24/7. That's a whole other level.

Scot: Thunder, what's your take on this? To me, my initial reaction is this probably is not good. I don't know. But then I hear what Troy just said. So what's your take?

Thunder: Like you guys, I am kind of a novice to the whole world of Huel and I tried to educate myself a little bit about it. I don't think they're doing anything new, as Mitch mentioned.

Over decades, there have always been food substitutes, meal substitutes, and they're always marketed with the same sort of thing. "You're too busy to make food, so eat this," or, "You want something healthy and you don't know how, eat this." etc.

So my take on it, this is probably not a terrible thing if you want to do it sometimes. I think, overall, the danger . . . I don't know if danger is the right word, but the problem with this sort of thing, in my opinion, is that it gets you really used to reaching for a convenience product to get your meal out of the way and move on to the next phase of the rat race.

I don't know. To me, it sounds restrictive. I've never tasted it, so I don't know if it's delicious or if it tastes like crappy camp food. But that's one of the things that I would wonder about. Would it get boring? I mean, you're all excited, you do it for a few weeks or a month, and then you're totally sick of eating all these lunches because you're rotating between the same five options.

I don't know, but maybe we'll find out because Mitchell is doing the experiment for us. So we'll get some information about it.

Troy: Along those lines, Thunder, too, I wonder . . . There probably are some beneficial health effects. I don't doubt that. I just wonder about the psychology of eating that way 24/7 and what the long-term effects of that are. Is it like being in the desert with just a small amount of water and then you get to the oasis and when you finally get a chance to drink water, you just overdo it and kill yourself? Do you just break down at some point and just go crazy and just eat tons of fast food? I don't know.

Thunder: Yeah, that's a great point. The health thing and then do you just totally go off the deep end because you can't take it anymore with the monotony?

I will say, regarding the health aspect of it, I'm split in my mindset of that. Just glancing at some of the ingredients and nutrition labels, it doesn't look like it's bad from a health standpoint at all. It's just that I wonder if you become reliant on it, does that prevent you from going out and seeking whole foods on your own? Do you get so used to the convenience that then the meals you do on your own tend not to be great because you've kind of fallen off the wagon of cooking and finding whole foods and going down the classic nutrition route?

Mitch: That's interesting because that was the big thing that I was wondering about. We talk a lot about whole foods. We talk a lot about they're the best possible version. But we've also said like, "Eh, if it's frozen, it's okay. It's still pretty nutritious." And this flash dried or whatever it is. It's 100% like camp food. It tastes . . .

Thunder: Yeah, freeze-dried

Mitch: . . . like camp food, but maybe a little bit better. I don't know. Maybe I'm just biased. But ultimately, is the processing or anything problematic for the foods that are in it, the ingredients? Is the nutritional value impacted by the way that it's formulated and shipped and packaged?

Thunder: I mean, the general answer is probably some, but it's hard to answer specifically without taking the ingredients in their natural state before they're freeze-dried or whatever and comparing them to the rehydrated version.

So we're going to guess that, yeah, there's going to be some degradation of some of the vitamins. But who knows exactly how much? Hopefully, you make it up with other parts of your diet as well, or maybe by just eating enough Huel that if the levels are lower, you eat enough volume to make up for it.

Scot: Hey, question for you Thunder. One of the things that you talked about one time was the food matrix that the nutrients reside in, and that makes a difference, right?

Thunder: It does make a difference, but this does seem to be like whole food. So I've got to give them credit for that. They're taking whole ingredients, not just powderized this or that. They're incorporating whole foods, which theoretically would address the food matrix issue.

Scot: All right. So, Mitch, I'm confused. I thought these were shakes.

Mitch: They do make shakes. That is an option you can have. I found them to be gross. That is a personal . . . That is not an official stance for this podcast or our organization. That is just a Mitch Sears opinion. Kind of gross.

Thunder: They taste like wallpaper paste.

Mitch: No, more like . . .

Scot: And that is a Thunder Jalili opinion. Not necessarily . . .

Mitch: Not the podcast.

Thunder: A completely uninformed opinion because I've never even tasted it.

Mitch: Sure. No, it's more along the lines of . . . Have you guys ever had the taste of pea-based protein powder? That weird veggie taste? You mix that with the smell of dirt and you mix it up with some almond milk and that's . . .

Thunder: My mouth is watering.

Scot: Again, why are you doing this?

Mitch: But I don't eat that. I eat the fancy hot and savory stuff. It's like a mac and cheese. And it's got quinoa-based noodles and a yeast-based cheese sauce, right? Or a Mexican chili that's full of lentils and beans and whatever. So it's 100% like the camp food you'd get at an REI or something like that, the kind of freeze-dried, rehydrate type stuff.

Scot: And do they amp up other nutritional stuff by adding additional things to it?

Mitch: That's what they say. They say they're able to increase the amount of plant-based protein. There are 27 vitamins and minerals. It's high in fiber because it's all lentil- and veggie-based.

Troy: Mitch, it sounds like you're going to do this.

Mitch: What? What am I doing? I just have it sometimes.

Troy: Are you doing Huel? I thought you were . . .

Mitch: I'm doing it.

Troy: I thought you were going all in on it. You're doing it. You're actively doing it.

Mitch: Oh, no. I am currently eating some Huel for lunches and I have another one that is some fancy oats that I have in the morning, high-protein oats. It's a similar concept. But it's not like I'm doing it every single day every, single meal.

Troy: Okay.

Mitch: I just mix it in there when I know I'm going to have a busy day or something like that. So I just do that rather than go get a gas station taquito.

Troy: Okay. So it's going to . . .

Thunder: The infamous roller food.

Troy: Yeah, it beats the alternative.

Scot: Yeah. I guess in comparison to that, it's pretty good stuff, right?

Troy: No, it really sounds like it is.

Thunder: In the application that Mitch is using, it's probably fine because he is not living off it. It's not the staple of his diet. Yeah, I don't really see any problem with it.

I think in the grand scheme of things, if you look across the spectrum of people that would be interested in this, maybe you'll get some people who want to make this their meal all the time. And that could have some issues.

I mean, for one, it's probably really expensive, and for two, it probably gets them away from exploring what they could get out of real foods and just gets them locked into this particular panel of meals.

And then as Troy was saying earlier, what if you just get to a point where you're like, "I can't take it anymore," and you just fall off the wagon and just will eat anything because you need a different taste?

Troy: And along those lines too, you mentioned cost, Thunder. Mitch, what are you finding in terms of how much you're paying for a meal?

Mitch: So it ends up being about $3 per meal.

Troy: That's pretty cheap.

Mitch: Maybe a touch more than that.

Scot: That's way cheap.

Mitch: So that's kind of more . . .

Troy: That's really cheap.

Mitch: Yes. They give you a bunch of bags. You have to order a certain amount, so there is a bit of an upfront cost. But yeah, for me to have just a couple of bags in the back, just on-hand, emergency replacement food, it's been nice. It's been nice to have that. I do worry that this feels processed. This feels like a trap. This feels like it's all snake oil or something like that. So I wanted to figure out.

Thunder: Technically, Mitch, it is processed because it's dehydrated and you have to reconstitute it.

Mitch: Yes. But is it killing the nutritional value? That kind of stuff.

Thunder: Yeah. And again, that's difficult to say. There's probably a little bit of a hit with the nutrients, with the vitamins and the phytochemicals, but it's impossible to say how much.

I have a couple of technical questions about the Huel. So you add water and you just throw it in the microwave. Is that how you prep these?

Mitch: Yeah. You put two scoops. They have these little special measuring scoops. If you want to get real technical about it, they give you the exact weight measurements, and then you put a couple of scoops of water, throw it in the microwave for two minutes.

Thunder: So how much food does this make? Are you full? Are you satiated from eating that?

Mitch: Yeah. It's a big bowl.

Thunder: Okay.

Troy: I'm just confused, Mitch. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out what these meals are, because my initial thought when I heard about this, I thought of Soylent. With Soylent, you're just drinking soybeans. I mean, it's just like a soybean paste and that's what you're drinking.

It sounds like, though, here you're talking about different varieties. They are like camp food, but some have a pasta sort of consistency to it. Others are just protein drinks. So it sounds like there at least is some variety both in the texture and the flavor of it.

Mitch: Oh, yeah. And I think that's kind of what drew me to it. They've got chilis, they've got Cajun dishes, they've got curries, they've got a chicken and mushroom. And they always spell it a little different because there's no meat in any of their products. A tomato and herb. A sweet and sour if you're feeling like you need a little bit of takeout Asian-type food. It's a good mix. They're okay. They're all pretty okay.

Troy: Yeah. For me, for someone who's certainly not a nutritionist, the way you're doing it seems to make sense where you're using them to substitute certain meals. It's not like it's overly expensive. It sure beats some of the alternatives for fast food or quick meals.

And it sounds like, from what Thunder is saying, there's definite nutritional value there. It's not like the freeze-drying process is necessarily causing it to lose a lot of that. So it seems like a pretty good approach.

And talking about it and just looking at their website here, I'm actually intrigued and maybe this will make it into my food metronome. We'll see.

Mitch: Oh, sure.

Thunder: Hey, I'm looking at the offerings, the hot and savory offerings. There are nine. They're advertised on the website. And I think it'd be neat just to real quick look at some of these ingredients, because they do emphasize the whole food thing.

I'm looking at yellow coconut curry because I actually like coconut curry. So they have dried grains, which consist of brown rice and quinoa, pea proteins, flaxseed, coconut milk powder, raisins, desiccated coconut, which just means dried up coconut, yellow coconut curry. So these are all pretty much whole ingredients that you would use if you're making coconut curry.

And then at the end, they have all the other things they add to it to bump up the nutritional content. And what I mean by that is ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C, nicotinamide. Is that in cigarettes? Nicotine? No, that's actually a vitamin.

Troy: No, I don't think it's the same thing. Yeah, nicotine is in cigarettes, but I don't think nicotinamide makes it in there.

Thunder: But it's funny. People will look at ingredients and they have no idea what some of these are because we're not used to seeing these added to food. They have alpha-tocopherol, which is vitamin E, lutein, which is a carotenoid, a vitamin A derivative, calcium, zinc, retinol acetate. So you guys get the idea.

Troy: Interesting.

Thunder: They're basically putting a multivitamin in these products. And every one has basically elements of a multivitamin added to it.

Troy: Yeah, that's interesting to hear that because as I was scanning over it, I got the impression it's a lot of, like you said, whole foods and you're getting the nutrition from that. It sounds like it has that certain component, which is the bulk of it, but then they're adding a whole lot to it as well to get those vitamins in there.

Thunder: Yeah. That's good for the label.

Mitch: I was so sure that there was going to be an "Oh, Mitch, you're ruining everything" episode. This is awesome.

Scot: I'm actually a little surprised too. And this feels like it's becoming an ad for this product, which it certainly is not, right? I'm still skeptical. I don't know why. I find that to be interesting. It doesn't sound like it's expensive. I figured it would be. It sounds like it tastes okay. It sounds like Thunder is reading the label and he is like, "Yeah, this seems all right." Troy is all like, "If you're just using it as a once in a while meal replacement, that'd be fine."

Thunder: Yeah, and I think that's the take-home message. Once in a while meal replacement, this is okay. You could do a lot worse.

I think what Troy and I agree on is that you don't want this to be the foundation of your diet all the time because while you could get by strictly from a nutrition standpoint, I think you miss out on other things. You miss out on trying new foods, trying new sources of nutrients, and the element of extra nutrition you get from fresh things, farmer's market products and so forth. But as a once in a while meal supplement, I think go for it, Mitch.

Mitch: Cool.

Thunder: I can't even really ding them for too much sodium. That's the low hanging fruit. You always bash on frozen foods or processed foods. "Oh, it has too much sodium." It doesn't really have a lot of sodium either. Yeah, as far as meal replacements go, it doesn't look like it's bad.

Scot: All right, Mitch.

Thunder: For me, it would really come down to taste, if I can stomach it or not.

Scot: Why don't you invite us over for a Huel dinner and we could do some taste testing?

Troy: Yeah. Speaking of inviting people for meals, why don't you serve us up a Huel buffet? We can try all sorts of different Huels.

Scot: We could all sit down at the table and then you can get up and you could put it in the bowl and we can watch you use the specially designed scoop to put two scoops of water in your food and then put it in the microwave and you can bring it out. That'd be great.

Thunder: It could be like a bonding food preparation experience like we talk about except with powder.

Mitch: It just feels like a joke on some sci-fi show of some sort where it's like, "Oh, yes, let me reconstitute the meal."

Scot: Who knows? That may be the way of the future. So I think this episode was all about Mitch wanting permission that this is okay.

Troy: Yeah.

Mitch: Yeah, basically.

Scot: Am I getting it correct that you guys are giving him permission?

Thunder: Yes. Mitch, you have permission to have occasional Huel.

Scot: All right, Mitch. Permission granted.

Mitch: Yes.

Scot: Can we wrap up the episode?

Mitch: Absolutely.

Scot: Okay. Thank you for listening and thank you for caring about men's health.

This week's recipe is Stuffed Spaghetti Squash and homemade No-bake Chewy Granola Bars. If you make it, tell us how it was and post your pictures on our Facebook page.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Scot: All right. So today on "Who Cares About Men's Health," we're going to find out how it went with the first recipe, easy Thai red curry. Was it tasty? How did it go for cooking newbie Troy? And we're also going to get another easy-to-make man meal that you can eat all week today.

It is "Who Cares About Men's Health," providing information, inspiration, and a different interpretation about men's health.

All right. Today's crew, we've got co-host, Dr. Troy Madsen.

Troy: Hey, Scot.

Scot: I'm Scot Singpiel. I bring the BS and ask the dumb questions so you don't have to. Mitch, looking good from his head to his toes, and now he can breathe through his nose. It's Producer Mitch in the mix.

Mitch: Oh, wow. I'm glad I get an intro now. It's fancy.

Scot: And our guests today from University of Utah's College of Health Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology, we have registered dietician and culinary coach Theresa Dvorak. She's got another stack of tasty recipes.

Theresa: Hey, there. How's it going?

Scot: Doing well. And he has a PhD in nutrition, and I also just learned today biochemistry and molecular biology. And he also has a 16-page CV. Thunder Jalili.

Thunder: You must be really bored to be looking up my background.

Scot: All right. Today's easy-to-make-all-at-once man meal we're reviewing was the easy Thai red curry. We're going to go around the table here, see what people thought, get any sort of feedback that might be useful, and then Theresa is going to give us another recipe.

I don't have a ton to say, so I'm just going to jump in first. I thought it was really good. What'd you think, Thunder? Was it good?

Thunder: Yeah, I thought the meal was delicious. It was a little different than the curries I've made before because of the added tomatoes, but I found I actually liked that extra flavor in there.

Scot: Okay. Troy, what'd you think?

Troy: Well, it's clear that I'm the outlier in the group. I think Mitch should go before I do.

Scot: Okay. Well, just in general, was it tasty? Can you at least answer that?

Troy: It was good. I liked it. It was good.

Scot: Okay. All right.

Theresa: Did we get to the end product?

Troy: We did. It was good.

Scot: Yeah, stay tuned for some whining from Troy coming up. That'll be fun. Mitch, was it good or not? What'd you think?

Mitch: I really liked it, but my partner is a bit of a foodie, and it was really surprising when we went to . . . We went down to the Southeast Asian market to get some supplies because I know Theresa on the episode was like, "Get good stuff. Go and get some quality ingredients. It'll make a better product."

I got the pre-prepared curry paste and he was a little snooty about it. He was like, "You know you can make your own curry? You know you can do that." And it turned out better than any curry that we've tried before. I'm just going to throw that out there.

Scot: I have a feeling, Theresa, that in this particular recipe, simplicity trumps authenticity.

Theresa: Well, I would beg to differ on the authenticity piece because I know many Asian/Southeast Asian/Thai individuals who just use paste.

So that brings into a good point of when you use pre-prepared packaged items and when you make them from scratch. And some of the key things that you want to look for are: Are there added chemicals, things like MSG or added alternatives? Is there added sugar? Is there a lot of extra salt in it?"

Those types of pre-prepared packaged things, sauces, mixes, soups, things of that sort, you could probably do better if you did from scratch. Whereas something like the curry paste is really just a blend of spices and peppers and things like that. And across the board, I would say most of them don't have that extra stuff in them that we often want to stay away from.

But if Jonathan wants to make his own, I would be more than willing to taste test for it.

Mitch: That's kind of what I told him too.

Troy: I'm just going to jump in here and say if I had to make my own curry paste, that would have been my breaking point.

Thunder: It would have been back to the bean burrito, Troy.

Troy: No, this is what I would have done. I thought very seriously about going down to a Thai restaurant we had been to a week before and ordering a red curry, and eating it, and saying, "Yes, I had a delicious red curry. I loved it." I was close.

Theresa: And taken a picture like Thunder.

Troy: And taken a picture and said, "Look how great my . . . I made a few modifications. It may not look like yours, but it was delicious." I was close, but like I said, I'm definitely the outlier. I recognize this was not a difficult recipe, but my background is . . . I thought back over the years. I've never made anything that required more than five ingredients, and even that has been a stretch for me. So usually my ingredients are pancake mix, eggs, milk . . .

Theresa: Water.

Troy: And maybe some water. That's been it. I made some cheesy potatoes before. You cut up potatoes. I looked it up to see how many ingredients it was.

Thunder: Wow.

Troy: It's potatoes, cheese, and cream of mushroom soup. That's the extent of my cooking expertise. So this was a stretch.

Theresa: Was it real cheese or Velveeta? No, I'm just joking.

Troy: It was real cheese. It was better than Velveeta. So I'm speaking for all the guys out there who may not have a lot of cooking experience. This was a stretch for me. This was tough.

Scot: Yeah, I want to throw in Troy's wife posted on Facebook and made me laugh out loud. So it says, "Troy's preparing dinner as part of a challenge for the podcast. In 13 years of marriage, he's never made dinner." Here are my favorite comments so far. This is from Troy's wife. "What is a saucepan?"

Troy: I have no idea

Scot: "Are shallots a vegetable? Was I supposed to buy those?"

Troy: Yeah, there were shallots in the recipe. I get down to this point and it says, "Add the shallots to the oil that's already cooking." I was like, "What did I miss? Where are shallots? I missed that."

Scot: That might be a little trip-up in the recipe because it asks for a yellow onion.

Theresa: I apologize. Yes, Troy, that was a typo. Thank you.

Troy: I figured it out later, but I hit that, I was like, "Shallots? Number one, what is a shallot? Number two, I didn't buy one."

Theresa: Well, see, I was thinking of you because I changed it originally from shallots to yellow onions, because I knew . . .

Troy: So you did that for me? Thank you.

Theresa: For all of you, yes.

Troy: For all of us. Me in particular.

Scot: It just sent him into a tailspin, though.

Troy: It did. I was like, "Whoa."

Scot: The third thing, "Do you know coconut milk is a thing?" That was his third comment. And not only is it a thing, it's the thing that makes this so freaking good, I have to say.

Troy: It did make a difference.

Thunder: It's a key ingredient.

Scot: If you don't know anything about coconut milk, know this. It makes things good. "Ginger is crazy-looking," and, "How do I do medium heat?" which is a legitimate kind of question in a way.

Thunder: Isn't that the middle part of the heat dial?

Troy: One would assume, but I honestly had it on medium and I'm like, "This isn't cooking fast enough." I'm supposed to brown everything I chopped up and it was two minutes into it and it wasn't very brown. I'm like, "Okay, I don't think this is medium." So that was throwing me off a little bit.

Scot: It takes time. I think I might have put in a little too much oil because it took a long time for my onions to brown, and I think maybe it was too much oil. I don't know.

So I think what we should focus on here is Troy's story because I think this could be a familiar story. For somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience in the kitchen, can be really kind of intimidated, Theresa, is there anything . . . What would you say to Troy or somebody like that? Because you teach cooking lessons out in the community, so you must run into this.

Theresa: Certainly. First and foremost, I would probably say Troy should join one of our classes.

Let me kind of tease this out a little bit more, Troy. Was it the recipe literacy piece or not knowing what . . . It sounds like there was not knowing what things are. And so just learning that? Or the actual seeing this laundry list of ingredients and multiple paragraphs of instructions, was that the intimidating part that caused a little bit of the shutdown?

Thunder: Or all the above?

Troy: Everything you just said. I went down aisles in the grocery store I have never visited before.

Theresa: Awesome. Love it.

Troy: I'm like, "I have never been in this aisle. Wait." And then I'm looking for the diced tomatoes and I find this aisle that has all the vegetables. I'm like, "Where are diced tomatoes?" There's every other vegetable you can imagine in this aisle. Come to find out diced tomatoes are in the Italian aisle. There are like 400 varieties of diced tomatoes by the spaghetti sauce.

And then the clincher . . . because I found the Thai paste pretty quickly because there is an Asian aisle, but the clincher was the coconut milk. I was like, "Coconut milk? Where in the world am I going to find that?" And I finally found it down on the bottom. They had a couple cans of coconut milk by the condensed milk. And so that part . . .

Theresa: In the baking aisle, yeah, which threw you. Why shouldn't it be by the Asian food?

Troy: I know.

Thunder: Troy, did you start in the dairy section for the coconut milk?

Troy: I might as well have.

Theresa: That's great.

Troy: I didn't go that far with it. I'm like, "I don't think it's going to be refrigerated. So it's not going to be next to a gallon of milk that I would pull out of the thing." But like I said, I was going places I've never been. And I'm glad there weren't a lot of people in the grocery store because it was just me going up and down aisles, up and down aisles multiple times.

Scot: Yeah, your frustration started at the grocery store, and then did it continue?

Troy: It did. Yes, it did continue. That wasn't the end of it. As I'm trying to peel the garlic, I'm like, "How do I peel garlic?" Just simple things. Honestly, I've never done them before, so Laura, my wife, says, "Well, if you put it in the microwave for like seven seconds, it makes it easier to peel." So that kind of helped.

And then the ginger, I kind of figured out how to peel that with the spoon, but again, it's something I'd never done before.

But when I did get into the recipe itself, I'm trying to time this stuff, like, "Okay, I've got this in there. Oh, wait, I need to add this. Oh, wait, I should have chopped those vegetables first. I didn't chop those vegetables. I've got to get those in."

So I think I probably should have read ahead a little bit more and been prepared for what was coming rather than just kind of going step by step, which is what I did. I mean, I got through it and it actually tasted really good. I was happy with the outcome, but it was a process, but I got there.

Theresa: So looking back, was it a good . . . Do you feel a little bit more empowered now . . .

Troy: I don't know if empowered is the best word.

Theresa: . . . for this next week's recipe?

Troy: Maybe a little bit.

Scot: Quite frankly, I'm afraid he's dropping out. I really am.

Troy: I thought about it. I hate to admit it. It was a challenge. Again, the most rewarding part is that, number one, I enjoyed it. It tasted good. Number two, Laura was very impressed. She was like, "Okay, this is really cool you did this." She was very supportive, so that was great. But it was a challenge. It was definitely a stretch.

Thunder: Troy, I have a question for you. How long did it take you to actually cook it?

Troy: The whole process, like once I chopped and cooked everything, was an hour and a half. So I was hoping it would be under an hour. It was an hour and a half.

Thunder: Well, the recipe did say an hour.

Troy: It did.

Thunder: So you blew through that metric.

Troy: Yeah, I did okay there. At the end I was like, "I'm just going to botch this and it's going to taste awful," but it actually tasted good. I will admit, I told you I was going to do minute rice. I did minute rice. I did not do any special kind of rice, but it tasted fine. It was good.

Scot: I just have a feeling . . . I'm not super well versed in the kitchen, but you start to kind of learn when . . . Like, while the onions are doing their thing, if you have an idea that it's going to take five to seven minutes, then you can be chopping your vegetables. I mean, after you do this a couple times, you start figuring that stuff out. So I hope that by the end of this, maybe we see some growth as Chef Madsen puts on his hat.

Theresa: In training.

Scot: Chef-in-training.

Theresa: Yeah, I think that's great. And you bring in a really great point, Troy, that a lot of newbies in the kitchen experience, is that they often don't read through the recipe. And so really reading through the recipe first to know what ingredients you're having. And often in that list, it tells you how it needs to be prepared and you can investigate and research that a little bit if needed.

But then it can also give you an idea of . . . kind of set the agenda almost of where we're starting and where we're going. And so you have that in the back of your mind as to, "Okay, this is the process."

Troy: It's true. And I think having been through this now, if I never cook another dish . . . I will. I will stick with it, but if I never cook another dish, I do feel like I could go back and I can make this and I could actually serve this to people who came to our house and be like, "Hey, I made this." And they'd be like, "Oh, it's pretty good."

So I feel like I now know what to expect and how to do things with this specific dish. And hopefully, that translates into a little more expertise with our next attempt here. We'll see how it goes.

Scot: And if you did this dish four or five times, you would be a master at it. I mean, it's just a matter of . . .

Troy: Yeah, that's true.

Scot: I mean, you'd be able to probably cut that time down. The frustration level would go away. And Thunder wanted to throw in . . . he had a couple of tips for maybe even making it easier to prepare some of the things in here. What did you have, Thunder?

Thunder: Yeah, since the idea is to have easy recipes that men can make that are not too intimidating, here are some ideas to make it more manly. I actually got frozen vegetables out of my freezer and put them in the curry instead of buying and slicing up my own vegetables. I had a powdered turmeric that I used instead of just shaving the root. I used the . . .

Troy: Powdered ginger, you mean?

Thunder: Sorry. Yeah, ginger.

Troy: Yeah, the ginger . . . Okay.

Thunder: And then I also had pre-minced garlic out of the jar. I used that stuff. Actually, the whole recipe didn't take that much time. What took the most time for me is I added my own flair to it. I took tofu and I pressed the water out of it and I stir-fried it and I added it to the curry, but I didn't have to do that.

Scot: They also have a pre-bottled or in a jar chopped ginger-garlic combination, which is what I used. So we have a jar of chopped garlic and then this little deal. Then you don't have to deal with that stuff, Troy, which can kind of take some of the stress and pressure off if you just buy that sort of thing.

Troy: That would have been nice.

Theresa: That piggybacks off of kind of what Mitch was talking about of how do you know what is a decent packaged or pre-prepared type of food versus not. And frozen vegetables, even some canned vegetables, are a great example of that because the chopping and finding it in-season and fresh can sometimes be challenging depending on the time of the year.

And those frozen individual veggies or veggie medleys are really great to have on hand so that you can just grab a couple of handfuls there and throw it in your sauce.

And you could throw it in your spaghetti sauce or your Thai curry sauce or your Alfredo or something like that too if you were venturing in those other directions.

Thunder: Can I ask a group question? I'm curious, what vegetables did you guys put into your curry? Now I'll go ahead and I'll start. I used frozen cauliflower, frozen red peppers and frozen orange peppers, and also some mushrooms I actually had in the freezer that I sautéed like a week before.

Scot: And those mushrooms held up, huh?

Thunder: Oh, they were fabulous.

Scot: Oh, that's cool. I did broccoli and cauliflower, a red bell pepper, and zucchini is what I put in. And then I just threw tofu. I didn't even press the water out of it like Thunder did. Mitch?

Thunder: I try to be fancy.

Mitch: Theresa was mentioning about the droopy vegetables, and I just threw everything in there. I had a parsnip, I had some carrots, I had a broccoli. It was just whatever. A red pepper. Things that were looking a little gross. They were not gross-gross, but they were a little wilty. I threw them in there.

Therese: A little wrinkly.

Mitch: A little wrinkly. Just chopped them up, threw them in there, delicious. I like that kind of thing because we try really hard to minimize our food waste in our house and so it was kind of cool to be like, "Well, this parsnip is not going anywhere. Let's just throw it on in."

Thunder: You've got the adventure award for using a parsnip. Who uses that in cooking?

Theresa: Troy, do you know what a parsnip is?

Troy: I was going to say, please do not put parsnip on the next recipe. It was hard enough to find a ginger root. A parsnip.

Thunder: Troy would be in the grocery for days looking for that.

Troy: You guys are just going to make a missing person's report or something. Seriously. Well, I have to add what I put in. I put in carrots and broccoli. So I get the least adventurous, but I did do tofu as well. Yeah, I did tofu too.

Theresa: Something that I hadn't put on the list, Troy, that I often do, thinking about keeping it meat-free as much as possible, is that I often will put garbanzo beans in it as well. It's another kind of additional protein alternative and good fiber source.

Troy: Nice.

Theresa: That's pretty easy, right? They're usually in cans. You don't have to boil them yourself. You can buy them canned and rinse them.

Troy: That's a great option.

Scot: All right. Well, Troy, this next week's recipe, I'm a little concerned, Theresa, that it's going to put Troy into a tailspin. I'm seeing stuff on here like canneli beans, artichoke hearts.

Theresa: Cannellini.

Scot: Cannellini beans, artichoke hearts.

Troy: Wow.

Scot: Sun-dried tomatoes, quality pasta sauce. You probably could manage that one.

Troy: Ragu?

Thunder: Is that Ragu?

Troy: I was going to say I know Ragu.

Scot: All right. So what's this week's recipe, Theresa? And talk us through this.

Theresa: Sure. So we actually have two recipes. I know that might be a stretch, and whether you make the second one or not, we can cross that bridge next week.

First is a stuffed spaghetti squash. When we think about alternative carbohydrates, spaghetti squash is one of those that tends to check some boxes when we're looking for something like a pasta dinner.

It's going to be nice in the sense that everything is relatively prepared for you. The ingredients are. So you're going to have marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, things that you could all find in . . . If there was an olive bar at the grocery store that you were choosing to go to, you could buy your small quantity there. Or then head down the Italian pasta aisle, and you'll find most of these ingredients.

They should be pretty similar areas of the grocery store, hopefully, Troy, that you're not having to meander all the way around the grocery store multiple times to find your items. But also, the benefit with some of those is that it brings in a lot of savory flavor.

And that's sometimes part of the issue when we're looking at using these large spaghetti squashes. They often need a lot of flavor because it's pretty bland on its own. And so that's why I choose a . . . when I say quality spaghetti sauce, I take it a step up from Ragu or Prego, and look at something that has a little lovelier of a label.

Rao's is a good brand. There are several others. Look for, again, a glass jar. If it's in a glass jar, it's probably a little bit better, and maybe something that's more than, say, a dollar a jar. Shoot for maybe $2 or $3 a jar.

And there are some tips in the recipe about how to cook the spaghetti squash and speed it up. Throw it in the microwave whole for a few minutes. It makes it much easier to cut.

This is also one that you could do in stages if you wanted to depending on how much time you have. You could cook the squash ahead of time, or even the day before, and then prepare it. If you wanted it for Monday night dinner, you could put the rest together, and it's a pretty quick 15 to 20 minutes in the oven that Monday night.

Scot: Any questions on this, Troy? Have you looked the recipe over?

Troy: I did look it over a little bit. I saw roasted red peppers on there. Does that mean I roast the red peppers in advance, or can you buy roasted red peppers?

Thunder: Troy, the olive bar is your friend.

Troy: The olive bar.

Thunder: Yes.

Theresa: And if not, yes, you can buy them jarred.

Troy: Okay, good. Good to know.

Theresa: So they're going to be in this same area that . . . your artichokes, your Kalamata olives, your sun-dried tomatoes are all going to be in that same area in the grocery store.

Troy: Italian aisle? Kind of near the spaghetti? I know pastas. I know spaghettis. As long as it's somewhere in that vicinity, I think I can find it.

Scot: Yeah, the stuffed spaghetti squash looks great. I've had spaghetti squash before and it is really, really tasty. And this looks really gourmet, but it also looks pretty easy to make. Like you said, a lot of the stuff is already kind of in cans, jars, whatnot.

The second one, I think Troy is going to really like this because he loves his protein bars.

Troy: I do love protein bars.

Scot: Yeah, maybe this will be a good substitute for you. It's something you might like. What is your second recipe, Theresa?

Theresa: Chewy granola bars. So from our conversation last week, there was lots of talk about things that are easy to grab and go, needing snacks that you feel good about, whether it's late night coming home from work, or middle of the day and just needing something to kind of take care of that craving in the afternoon, or even that sweet tooth. This one would definitely satisfy that as well. And who doesn't love a nice, crunchy, chewy granola bar that's got chocolate?

And so this one is really pretty easy and you can mix and match with either what you have at your house or what you like to put in it. Essentially, you need a nut butter, some honey, and then some cereal. So puffed rice, puffed kamut, things of that sort to give that crunch.

I like to put in some seeds like chia seeds or flax seeds. You could certainly put in some slivered almonds or things like that if you wanted to.

And then whether it's chocolate chips or a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder, both work to give that nice chocolate flavor without a ton of extra sugar.

So yeah, the chewy granola bars, I think they'll become a favorite. And they're really easy to make and you can store them in the fridge or the freezer and pop one out as you're ready.

Scot: So one of the things that we want to watch for is added sugar. We've learned that added sugar is not necessarily great. I'm noticing a lot of sugar stuff in this, like light brown sugar, cocoa powder. Maybe that's actually not sugar. Chocolate chips, that's sugar. What makes this better?

Thunder: Partly.

Scot: Yeah. What makes this better than what I might buy in the store?

Theresa: So part of it is the ratio of sugar to your cereal and your nuts and seeds and things of that sort that are mixed into it. And certainly, yes, there is the sugar there. It's going to taste sweet.

We've got to think about portion size. Whether I'm eating a Snickers bar or a protein bar, often when we look at the nutritional content, they're very similar honestly.

And so with this recipe, it's got a significant amount of protein, which is really nice, from the nut butters brought into it. And if you add some nuts and seeds, you're getting a lot of extra fiber there as well.

And when you split up the actual sugar content per serving, it's a bit less than . . . When you see, "Oh, a whole half a cup of honey," you've also got to remember that you're dispersing that throughout all of your servings.

Troy: Are we making both of these then?

Scot: You are. I don't know about the rest of us, but you are.

Thunder: Troy, you make both of them, and we'll give you a couple of weeks to get through it.

Troy: Thanks, guys. Seriously, that's not a bad idea.

Thunder: You might have to take a leave of absence.

Troy: Yeah, can I get a leave of absence? Can one of you guys give me a work note? Seriously. Wow.

Theresa: Focus on the spaghetti squash. And if you've got time to do the granola bars, you can go from there.

Troy: I'm going to focus on spaghetti squash. I'm going to find the olive bar. I will find roasted red peppers and marinated artichoke hearts. I'm going to do this.

Scot: Warning: Put that spaghetti squash in the microwave. I've never heard that trick. They can be really hard to cut. You have to be careful with spaghetti squash.

Troy: Yeah. I do not want to slice a hand.

Theresa: You can always put it in the oven whole. It takes a little longer. It takes more like 45 minutes versus a half an hour in the oven. But yes, you can just put it straight into the oven on a baking sheet if you want, or straight onto the rack, but you can do that. And then how do you know it's done? You can stick a fork in it.

Scot: All right. Well, we're going to stick a fork in this episode right now. Thank you very much for listening, and we hope that you participate. If you do, let us know about it on Facebook. You can go to facebook.com/whocaresmenshealth. Send your pictures to hello@thescoperadio.com, or leave your voice message at 601-55SCOPE. Thanks for listening and thanks for caring about men's health.

Dr. Chan: What makes a dancer decide to go into the sciences after graduating from college and working professionally in dance for several years? How do you navigate pivoting your career? Why was the decision of going to school in physical therapy one that felt not quite right? How do you balance going back to school to complete pre-reqs while you're having a baby and preparing to apply to medical school at the exact same time?

Today on "Talking Admissions and Med Student Life," I interview Cecelia, a first-year medical student here at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Announcer: Helping you prepare for one of the most rewarding careers in the world, this is "Talking Admissions and Med Student Life" with your host, the Dean of Admissions at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Dr. Benjamin Chan.

Dr. Chan: We've got another great guest today, Cecelia. How are you doing?

Cecelia: I'm good. How are you?

Dr. Chan: Great. Just started med school?

Cecelia:Mm-hmm.

Dr. Chan:All right. How's the first couple weeks going?

Cecelia: Good, busy.

Dr. Chan: Doable?

Cecelia: Doable. Definitely.

Dr. Chan: All right. Now too overwhelming?

Cecelia: Not too overwhelming. Just a little.

Dr. Chan: Just a little? Okay. We'll talk about that, but let's jump back in time, Cecelia. You grew up in Utah, right?

Cecelia: I did. Yeah.

Dr. Chan: Okay. Where did you grow up? What area?

Cecelia: In The Avenues.

Dr. Chan: In The Avenues. Okay. And growing up in Utah, went to high school here, and then . . .

Cecelia: I went to Judge.

Dr. Chan: You went to Judge and then there was like . . . Let's just . . . When did you decide to become a doctor? And we'll just kind of work that way in.

Cecelia: That's a good question. So I guess medicine has kind of always been in my life. My mom is a pediatric nurse practitioner, but when I started college, I had zero interest in medicine. And I went to college at Santa Clara University in California and majored in dance and psychology.

Dr. Chan: Interesting.

Cecelia: And then after I finished college, I moved up to San Francisco with the hopes of living the life of an artist.

Dr. Chan: Interesting. It's very bohemian.

Cecelia: Sort of.

Dr. Chan: So we're talking like a dancing career, or what are we talking about?

Cecelia: Yeah. So I danced with a small dance company in San Francisco. There's a lot of sort of independent artists in that part of the Bay Area.

Dr. Chan: Did you have a name for the group or troop, or what are they called?

Cecelia: Yes. Company.

Dr. Chan: Company. Okay.

Cecelia: It was called Double Vision.

Dr. Chan: Double Vision.

Cecelia: And we did sort of an experimental artwork. We had an electronic music composer that we worked with. So we performed a lot in San Francisco. We went on a national tour where we slept on all of our friends' floors.

Dr. Chan: Couch surfing across the country.

Cecelia: Yes.

Dr. Chan: How big is this company?

Cecelia: It was about six or seven people, give or take.

Dr. Chan: All right. Modern dance, ballet, robot dancing? What kind of . . .

Cecelia: Modern dance. I did dress up as a robot one time.

Dr. Chan: Oh, is that on YouTube? Could we find it for all the listeners out there?

Cecelia: No. I think there are maybe pictures on the internet if you search deep enough.

Dr. Chan: Okay. My kids are into robot dancing. Apparently they've been teaching that in schools now.

Cecelia: That's awesome.

Dr. Chan: So, yeah. It's very cute that they do it. They go, "Beep, beep, beep."

Cecelia: Yeah. So I did that for . . . I got, like, about five or six years, and San Francisco is obviously a very expensive place to live.

Dr. Chan: That's why you're here. I've lived in California. I remember. I mean, gorgeous, you know, good weather, great food.

Cecelia: High rent.

Dr. Chan: High rent, steep streets. Yes.

Cecelia: So being involved in art was wonderful and very rewarding, but supporting myself was always very difficult. So while I was dancing, I also worked in the nonprofit sector mostly for medium-sized arts organizations helping them fundraise. And after a while, I felt like I had done as much artistic things, artistic stuff in my life. I kind of met those goals and I wanted a more stable life.

Dr. Chan: So the entire time you're dancing . . .

Cecelia: Yeah.

Dr. Chan: . . . in the back of your mind, you're thinking medicine, you're thinking health care, or . . .

Cecelia: Thinking? So I guess my interest in science sort of expanded while I was dancing. It may seem counterintuitive, but there's actually a pretty big crossover between scientists and artists. So that was happening and I wanted a more stable career.

Working in an office isn't something that I love, sitting behind a desk all day. So I started kind of thinking about new things to do. I thought about going into public policy and then I thought about the healthcare world, and kind of went back to my roots with talking to my mom about her career.

Dr. Chan: So your mom the entire time is like, "I was always hoping you'd come back." I assume she was very supportive of dance.

Cecelia: She's very supportive. Yeah.

Dr. Chan: But she's probably trying to take the long view going, "I'm not sure if you can do this for the rest of your life."

Cecelia: Right. Or, "Maybe you should figure out how to always pay your bills yourself."

Dr. Chain: Yes. So there is something to the starving artist kind of image.

Cecelia: Yes. And I think some people are better at dealing with that than others. Some people need more stability, and I think I'm one of those people. So I thought about science and health care, and kind of settled on physical therapy, because it seems like a good way to combine what I had done in dance.

Dr. Chan: Yeah. I mean, dancers have injuries. Were you ever injured?

Cecelia: Nothing serious.

Dr. Chan: Did you have to go get some physical therapy?

Cecelia: I did get a little bit of physical therapy over the years.

Dr. Chan: All right. Yeah. That makes sense. That's kind of a natural . . .

Cecelia: Yeah. And if you talk to physical therapists, there's always a contingent that are former dancers. And I thought that would give me the opportunity to, you know, go back and take the pre-reqs and kind of indulge myself in learning more science, something that I felt like I missed out on in my undergrad years.

Dr. Chan: So it sounds like after the arts career starts kind of winding down, you had to go back to school a little bit and get your application, get your life ready for this pivot, this transition.

Cecelia: Yeah. Exactly. And I did most of that while I was still working full time in a nonprofit sector, so it took me a while. And then . . .

Dr. Chan: This is all in San Francisco?

Cecelia: All in San Francisco. Yeah. And then I applied to PT school. And there was always like a little voice in the back of my mind thinking that maybe I wanted to go to medical school, but I forged ahead. And got into PT school, started PT school, and it never felt quite right. It always felt very close to right, but not quite there.

Dr. Chan: So it felt better?

Cecelia: It felt better. And the first year of PT school, the program that I was in, sort of was split between learning the basics of physical therapy and also kind of getting a foundational understanding of medical science.

Dr. Chan: Yeah. And there's anatomy. I mean, did you take those types of classes then or was that later on, or . . .

Cecelia: So we started with anatomy. We went into cadaver lab.

Dr. Chan: Because there's a fair amount of overlap between medicine and physical therapy, pharmacy. I mean, it's the health sciences for a reason.

Cecelia: Exactly. So everybody has, you know, some of the basic education understanding. So what I found was that I loved my anatomy class. I loved my physiology class. We had to take a pathology class too. And my physical therapy classes, like kinesiology and orthopedics, I sort of had to force myself to study for them and the opposite was true for most of my classmates. So I . . .

Dr. Chan: And how big is this program? How many people are in there?

Cecelia: It was 50 people.

Dr. Chan: Fifty people. Okay. Kind of, I would say, medium size.

Cecelia: Yeah. Medium size. I think there are some programs that are smaller and a lot that are bigger. So I kind of struggled with that for about the first six months, and then I reached out to my physiology teacher. He's an MD, and he's also very involved in teaching medical students. And he gave me really good life advice, which was basically that you don't want to be 90 years old on your deathbed and have any regrets.

Dr. Chan: That's very true.

Cecelia: But it's never too late to make a change. So I started reaching out to some different physicians that he connected me with and immediately found a couple of female physicians that were just great role models and kind of the example of what I want to be in 10 to 15 years.

Dr. Chan: Kind of gave you an image. Kind of gave you what to strive for, a model. Yeah.

Cecelia: Exactly. So from the time that I talked to my physiology teacher to the time that I decided to take a leave of absence from PT school was about another six months, and it seemed like this totally overwhelming decision. Quitting something is really hard especially for me. So really, it was one of the hardest decisions that I've ever made.

Dr. Chan: Because probably you started making friends with the other PT students.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: And then it was like, "Oh, I'm not going to do this guys," you know?

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: That must have been a hard discussion.

Cecelia: Yeah. It was really hard and I think I was really afraid that people would judge me for it. And what I found was once I actually made the decision to leave PT school, immediately, this huge stress in my life was just gone. And people weren't judgmental of me. They were actually really supportive. So it was like I had to kind of projected all of my self-judgment on what I thought other people would think of me and . . .

Dr. Chan: You're your own worst critic. Yes.

Cecelia: Exactly. And the other really funny thing that happened is people started reaching out to me, like other PT school students that were kind of struggling with whether PT was the right place for them, another friend of a friend who was thinking about going back to medical school too. So everybody was just suddenly very supportive and it was very clear that that was the right decision.

Dr. Chan: So, made another pivot in your life.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: Did you have to go back and do even more kind of pre-med activities and classes, and things like that?

Cecelia: Yeah. I had to go back and take the second semester of OChem and get ready for the MCAT. And I also had a baby at the same time.

Dr. Chan: So, yeah, you bring that up, Cecelia, so let's about that. So we've talked about your professional and educational life. And then your personal life, you know, you can't really separate these things.

Cecelia: No.

Dr. Chan: You know, that's all kind of chugging along. And so, when did you meet this person? I assume they have been supportive with all these changes. So, yeah, how was that?

Cecelia: So I met my husband when I was still dancing in San Francisco, but we got married while I was in PT school.

Dr. Chan: All right.

Cecelia: So we got married. We've been married for a little over three years now, and in that time I've gone from PT school to leaving PT school, to having a baby, to applying to medical school, to starting medical school.

Dr. Chan: A lot of changes.

Cecelia: And he's gone through, like, several job changes. So it's been an eventful few years.

Dr. Chan: Yeah, but it sounds he's incredibly supportive and just . . . And he's not from Utah.

Cecelia: No.

Dr. Chan: It sounds like . . . is he from California?

Cecelia: He grew up mostly in Michigan.

Dr. Chan: Michigan. Okay.

Cecelia: Via North Carolina.

Dr. Chan: So you're a little bit closer to his family, right?

Cecelia: Yeah, slightly.

Dr. Chan: It's making the education move back East. So I'm going to use this word, and you probably have heard this before, but a nontraditional student or a nontraditional applicant. Would you say that fits you in your situation?

Cecelia: I would say definitely. And it's funny, through the interview process, I remember talking to one doctor. And she said something like, "Oh, everybody's a nontraditional applicant these days." And then I started to tell her my story. And she was like, "Oh, you're really a nontraditional applicant." So I think I'm kind of on the far end of the spectrum.

Dr. Chan: So let's just start picking apart. So MCAT, was that a little bit harder to study for a nontraditional student, or did you feel like, you know, you're good at taking tests? I mean, what advice would you give or how did you do this? I've talked to a lot of people and that's a bear of a test.

Cecelia: It is.

Dr. Chan: It's a very long test, like eight, nine hours, lot of intense studying. It's a pretty important test.

Cecelia: Very important.

Dr. Chan: So, yeah, what were your techniques? I mean, how did you balance all this stuff?

Cecelia: So my original plan was to take the MCAT before I had my baby while I was pregnant, and what I found was that because I took so many of my pre-reqs before I started PT school, I was very rusty with general chemistry and physics. And I delayed my test date. So I was supposed to take it in September, and I just wasn't ready. So I actually took it when my son was 6 months old.

Dr. Chan: Okay. Interesting.

Cecelia: So it was a lot. The MCAT, I thought . . .

Dr. Chan: Would you recommend that to other people?

Cecelia: No.

Dr. Chan: Cecelia says . . .

Cecelia: Don't do it.

Dr. Chan: Don't do it.

Cecelia: But with the caveat that, I guess, you shouldn't . . . I mean, sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Dr. Chan: Were you taking practice tests leading up to it?

Cecelia: Yes. So I did a lot of content review and study, and some practice tests. And then had my baby, took kind of about a month break, and then started studying again. And I took it on June 1.

Dr. Chan: Okay. And if I recall, you did extremely well.

Cecelia: I did do well. Yeah. I would say . . .

Dr. Chan: Good job, Cecelia.

Cecelia: Thank you. The challenging part was in terms of balancing family obligations. For my situation, after I had the baby, what made the most sense was for me to be my son's primary caretaker, because childcare, especially in the Bay Area, is very expensive. So we set up a support system for ourselves where kind of we traded off grandparents coming to visit me and that was when I worked in a lot of my study time, and then over naptime, and stuff like that. So it took me longer to get ready for the MCAT because I had a baby than it otherwise would have.

Dr. Chan: But then you're throw in all the other stuff that med schools are looking for, like shadowing doctors and community service. I mean, is that the same thing just kind of like prioritizing and multitasking? Is that how you see that?

Cecelia: Yeah. I feel like I did most of my community service before I had the baby, and then I found . . . you know, I guess in any sort of difficult, challenging process, finding good mentors is so important. So my former physiology professor has been and still is a great mentor of mine. And he gave me the opportunity to come back to my physiology class and TA. So that was something that was very doable with a baby.

My other mentor is a hospitalist at the VA Hospital. And we had this long-term basically quality improvement project that we were working on. So that was something that they could do at home on my own time and come in for meetings about once a month or, you know, talk on the phone. So flexibility was super important for me.

Dr. Chan: Awesome. So you started applying to schools. I mean, as a nontraditional student, did you target schools . . . because I think this information is out there . . . that are . . . I don't know what the word is. Pro nontraditional student, I guess. I mean, how did you pick the schools to apply to? Do you see what I'm saying?

Cecelia: Yeah. So basically, my husband works in tech and being close to San Francisco is important for his career trajectory. And he also, about the time that I decided to start applying to medical school, started basically the perfect job for him. And so he is in charge of all of the engineers for a startup. It's a hardware startup, so he's managing mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and his background is in computer science, so programmers also.

So we wanted to make it as likely as possible that he would be able to stay at his job while I went into medical school. So we targeted schools mostly based on geography, also with the idea that we wanted to be places where we had family support.

Dr. Chan: So I can see Utah kind of rising on the list.

Cecelia: Yeah. Utah is less than a two-hour flight away. My mom is here. It's a great place to have kids.

Dr. Chan: Yeah. And if you really get crazy one night, you can drive straight, stop in Reno.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: Do a little gambling. Just keep on pushing through to the Bay Area. I've done that trip many a times, but I never gamble. Okay. So you started applying to schools and then the interview process . . . Again, I have a theory. Want to hear my theory and then you can . . .

Cecelia: Yes.

Dr. Chan: So my anecdotal . . . I don't have any data that supports this, but just anecdotally I feel that nontraditional students do slightly better in the interview process because they're a little bit older and more mature, have more life experience, and they can kind of talk about things better. Do you agree or disagree with that?

Cecelia: I do agree to, I guess, a point. I think because I'm so far to the end of the spectrum of nontraditional, particularly in the more traditional style interviews, I think I threw a couple of my interviewers off.

Dr. Chan: Oh, I see.

Cecelia: Just that they weren't expecting my life story to be what it was, and I could have maybe prepared for that a little bit better. And the MMIs are all obviously different because your personal life doesn't really come up.

Dr. Chan: So you liked MMIs better?

Cecelia: Yeah. I mean, in some ways they were easier. I didn't have to answer quite as many personal questions. And as a woman that has a young child, whether it's true or not, there's a certain amount of anxiety in revealing that you just had a baby when you're applying to medical school.

Dr. Chan: You'll fit right in. Yeah.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: Several of your classmates, both men and women, have had children. So, yeah.

Cecelia: Exactly. Which is great.

Dr. Chan: Have you guys found each other? Have you started kind of . . .

Cecelia: I know who most of them are. It's a club.

Dr. Chan: It's a club. Yeah.

Cecelia: So, yeah, but I think that you definitely have more to talk about.

Dr. Chan: Okay. That's just something people . . . So I'm getting a lot of questions nowadays about gap years. I like your phrase, you know, "the spectrum of nontraditional." And so, nationally, the average age of incoming students is creeping up. Right?

Cecelia: Right. Yeah.

Dr. Chan: And so, nationally I think the number is, you know, 24 years old, 25 years old. We've always been above the national average by a year or two for cultural, religious, etc., reasons. So more and more students are a little bit old older as they start medical school.

People ask me about gap years. I say, "Well, you know, the path to medicine is very long. If there's anything you want to do, you should really maybe do it before med school." So people are going out and they're doing Teach for America or the Peace Corps, and they're just kind of doing stuff, or working in the private sector, or doing all the stuff.

And so I think it's . . . I don't know. I think people have these different experiences, and then they come to medical school, and then they make the class richer and they have different perspectives. And it kind of drives the debate in educational experience.

Cecelia: Definitely.

Dr. Chan: So I don't know. Have you experienced that the first few weeks of school or . . .

Cecelia: Yeah. I agree. I think also . . .

Dr. Chan: Because you've already had some TBLs, right?

Cecelia: Right. We've had a lot, and it's interesting. In our TBLs, you can see that everybody has sort of their field of knowledge that they have more knowledge in. So working in a group together is really great. I'm strong in anatomy because of PT school, but my background in molecular biology is not as strong as some of the other people in my group. So we kind of all bring each other up.

I also think just diversity in so many ways is great for medicine in general and a medical school class, and that includes life experience. So I think there's definitely something to be said for the people that have the maturity and, you know, have differentiated themselves enough to go straight through along with people who've taken a different path. I think it's good to have both.

Dr. Chan: Yeah. I remember when I went to medical school, I was more . . . I was young. I was, like, 23 or 24. And I remember my classmates were older than me. You know, they're in their late 20s, 30s, and it was just . . . I was still friends with them, but it was like, "They have all of these other responsibilities."

Our lovely library, I remember studying at night and I would see these guys and their wives or husbands, they would drop by dinner. And I was like, "Oh, I wish someone would bring me dinner." So, you know, it's sixes because it's hard. As I've talked to the students, especially that just start out, I think everyone's trying to find . . . I call it the academic rhythm, you know, their routine.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: And trying to establish a schedule. And for a lot of students, they haven't been in school for a few years. But even if they were just in undergrad last year, I would argue, "That school is different."

Cecelia: Definitely.

Dr. Chan: You're like, "This is the big leagues." You know, there's a lot of information in a short amount of time. So I think people are starting to find their footing.

Cecelia: Yeah, definitely.

Dr. Chan: Do you think you found your footing or . . .

Cecelia: I think I have a goal to what my footing would be.

Dr. Chan: Okay.

Cecelia: And it's funny, having family responsibilities and a child, it definitely has its pluses and its minuses. I feel like once you have kids, kids thrive on routine and schedules, so I'm forced into a routine. I definitely get up at the same time every day and go to bed near the same time every night. I know that if I deviate from my routine, I'm going to pay for it because I don't have a lot of wiggle room. But I do have less time, so I can't get behind, but I think that it's very doable.

Dr. Chan: Okay. Are you more of a . . . just to ask, are you more of a library study person or after your son goes down to sleep kind of study person? How have you found that time?

Cecelia: So my goal . . .

Dr. Chan: The goal, yes.

Cecelia: My goal, which I've not achieved yet, is to get up a little bit earlier than he does. I'm lucky that he's a good sleeper. So he sleeps until about 7:00 in the morning. So my goal is to get up around 5:30, get myself ready, have maybe at least a half an hour to study, and then get him up, get him ready for the morning, take him to daycare, and then study until . . . Our classes don't usually start until 1:00.

Dr. Chan: Yeah. I mean, that's very fortuitous. That really helps.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: And that's a good three to four hours.

Cecelia: Solid.

Dr. Chan: Powering. I remember those, power. Yeah.

Cecelia: And then after class I've been, you know, getting to daycare as fast as I can. And then . . .

Dr. Chan: Yeah. They'll find you.

Cecelia: Oh, yeah. Five dollars a minute.

Dr. Chan: Oh, yeah. When is it? When is the . . .

Cecelia: 6:00 p.m.

Dr. Chan: Okay.

Cecelia: So there's plenty of time.

Dr. Chan: Plenty of time.

Cecelia: So I've been . . .

Dr. Chan: They're very militant about that. My kids are in a similar program, and it's like you do not mess with that.

Cecelia: No.

Dr. Chan: And I feel like, "What happens after a half hour? Do you start depriving them of food and water?" I don't know. It just seems like . . . Yeah. And then the sick policy too, that's kind of . . .

Cecelia: Right. So luckily, I mean, I'm sure that will happen.

Dr. Chan: "Oh, can you come pick him up? He has a fever." "What his number?" "98.0." "I don't think that's a fever, but I'm not going to get in an argument with you because my child . . . Yeah. So I'll come pick him up." Yeah.

Cecelia: Yeah. So that part is going to be a little tough I think once he gets sick, which happens all the time. And then I try and study a little bit after he goes to bed. So my husband's been traveling back and forth between here and San Francisco a lot, but after another week or so, he'll be mostly in Salt Lake working remotely.

Dr. Chan: Cool.

Cecelia: So that'll be easier too.

Dr. Chan: So how did it feel moving back to Utah?

Cecelia: It's good.

Dr. Chan: Is it like the prodigal Utahn? "I never thought I'd be back here," or, "This is great," or . . .

Cecelia: I definitely never thought I would move back to Salt Lake City and I'm sure my husband didn't. You know, 15 years ago, he would not have thought he would be living in Utah.

Dr. Chan: That's the beauty of life.

Cecelia: Exactly. But it's great. I mean, especially at this stage in my life with having a family being near, grandparents, and having that kind of support, you just can't match it. And my life is actually less exhausting now than it was in San Francisco even with medical school. I don't know how.

Dr. Chan: Well, you know, as I tell people, I think our lives are like 5,000-chapter books.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: And you're on maybe . . .

Cecelia: Chapter 1,000.

Dr. Chan: Chapter 1,000. You have 4,000 more chapters to go. I mean, you don't know where life will take you. I think the next four years you're going to be very busy, but very beautiful. And then there's that whole residency match thing. You shouldn't think about that now because you just started. But there's this other kind of like, big pivot, like, "Oh, residency? What field? Where are we . . ." Your husband is aware of this, right?

Cecelia: Oh, yeah. My husband moved around a lot as a kid. So he's much more flexible than I am.

Dr. Chan: So he's going to understand that this is going to be beautiful. It's going to be a journey.

Cecelia: Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Chan: It's going to be a long journey.

Cecelia: I think he's one of those people that discovered sort of his career purpose very young. He started programming computers when he was, like, 10 years old. So he's just excited for me to start my . . .

Dr. Chan: Like, "Cecelia, you've been talking about this for a long time. It's starting. You're happy."

Cecelia: Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Chan: That's good. How did you guys meet?

Cecelia: So one of my day jobs when I was dancing in San Francisco, I was an office manager at a PR firm and my sister-in-law, my husband's sister, worked there. And so we had this other co-worker who was an amateur stand-up comic, so we met at one of her amateur comedy shows.

Dr. Chan: Wow. That's a good story.

Cecelia: In the Tenderloin. I don't know how familiar you are with San Francisco.

Dr. Chan: Yeah.

Cecelia: Not the greatest neighborhood.

Dr. Chan: But with a lot of character.

Cecelia: Exactly.

Dr. Chan: Very cool. All right. So I want to bring it back because you said some at the beginning and I want to kind of explore that more. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to come do this thing. I'm taking away your test study time. I feel bad.

Cecelia: Just a little bit.

Dr. Chan: Just a little bit. You mentioned that science and art, there's a synergy there. There's, like, a crossover, an overlap. Can you tell me more about that?

Cecelia: Yeah. So actually one of my friends that I danced with in my dance company just started her internal medicine residency at Pittsburgh. So when I was thinking about doing all of this, I talked to her for a really long time and she was very supportive.

And the director of my dance company, the choreographer, her day job, which she still has, she administered a graduate program for a biology professor at UC Berkeley.

And so, there was this core group of seven or eight kind of regular artists, but we would do these big projects. And she would recruit these scientists that she knew from Berkeley. And she attended the integrative biology program.

Dr. Chan: Interesting.

Cecelia: So they did a lot of . . . they would build robots that moved cockroaches and they did a lot of kind of crazy stuff. So we had these very talented mechanical engineers that would, you know, help us develop crazy sets and things to interact with in our performances. So that's kind of, I guess, a more concrete example.

I think in terms of how the artistic brain and the scientific brain work is actually very similar. You know, science is always asking questions and coming up with possible explanations. And I think the creative process is like that also. Particularly in modern dance, there's this tradition of when you're trying to figure out how to create a new work of art. You either come up with a problem that you're trying to solve or sort of a meditation on different experiences or ideas that you see in the world.

Dr. Chan: Interesting.

Cecelia: I guess there's an intellectual curiosity at the core of both of them.

Dr. Chan: With all that's going on your life, do you still have time to do a little art, a little dance on the side, or maybe that's a goal?

Cecelia: That could be a goal, but not right now.

Dr. Chan: Right.

Cecelia: I did meet over the last six months some younger physicians in San Francisco who were producing live storytelling events, and they kind of recruit practicing physicians to come in and tell their stories on a theme. So I've been working with them a little bit.

Dr. Chan: You know, with Layers of Medicine, I don't know if you know this, but there's usually an end-of-year project. I'm thinking you should do a dance. I'm thinking, just as an idea. I'm going to put that out there.

Cecelia: I've thought about it.

Dr. Chan: You can just blow away your classmates. They probably have no idea how good you are.

Cecelia: Maybe I will do a dance film that I can do ahead of time.

Dr. Chan: Okay. A dance film. All right.

Cecelia: I guess I should also say the choreographer of my dance company, she's still doing artwork. I don't know if you've read the book, "The Body Keeps the Score."

Dr. Chan: I've heard of it. I haven't read it.

Cecelia: So she's doing a lot of stuff with people that have experienced trauma in their life, and they create works of art that are interactive that do things like . . . they'll sense someone's heart rate and then project it visually so people can see it, and create kind of this experiential environment where people not relive their trauma, but experience kind of the physiological . . .

Dr. Chan: That's beautiful.

Cecelia: . . . process that you go through in the hope that it will be healing.

Dr. Chan: Wow, that's really cool.

Cecelia: So I've talked to her a little bit over the . . .

Dr. Chan: Yeah. I did a little PTSD research and study. The book I think about when you said it is "The Body Remembers." I remember studying that book. Probably it sounds very similar.

Cecelia: I think it is.

Dr. Chan: Yeah. Well, that's beautiful, Cecelia. I really appreciate you coming in.

Cecelia: Thanks for having me.

Dr. Chan: This has been awesome. And I'm excited to see you over the next few years and watch you grow into a doctor. And we'll have to have you come back and give us updates about your son, about your husband, about medical school, and where you're at, and ultimately what field you choose.

Cecelia: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me.

Dr. Chan: Cool. Thanks, Cecelia.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to "Talking Admissions and Med Student Life" with Dr. Benjamin Chan, the ultimate resource to help you on your journey to and through medical school. A production of The Scope Health Sciences Radio online at thescoperadio.com.