Ep. 36 | Ben Hogan, MD, Family and Sports Medicine, SGMC Health

Transcript

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- Welcome to another episode of What Brings You in Today.

- I'm Erika Bennett. And I'm Taylor Fisher. And we just want to start off by thanking all of our listeners for tuning into another episode of what Brings You in Today.

- And if you have any questions or topics you'd like to submit, you can do that at sgmc.org/podcast.

- Alright, well, today we're here with Ben Hogan, MD, he's family in sports medicine. So Dr. Hogan, what brings you in today?

- We were gonna talk about family practice and sports medicine.

- Awesome. Well, you've been in our community for quite some time now. So let's just start by getting to know you a little bit. Tell us some, your background history and kind of how you got to where you are today.

- Yeah, I've been in your community since 1970. I grew up here, went to Valdosta High School, went to University of South Carolina, played football there. Went to med school at Mercer University up in Macon, and then did my residency in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama. And then

- Roll Tide. Roll Tide. And then, and if Kara Hope had a mic, she would've said cats because she's, but go ahead.

- And then, then came back to Valdosta to, to start a practice. I, my dad was a, a pharmacist here, had the, had Hogan's pharmacy over on Oak Street. Oh. And so I remember when he started his pharmacy when he left Barnes in 1976. And how, kind of how the people of the, the community supported him, especially the first couple years when he was struggling. And so I wanted to come back to Valdosta and take care of my community that, that took care of my family when I was growing up. So

- That's awesome. I had not made that connection with Hogan's Pharmacy, so that's, I hadn't neither. Really cool. So you have a lot of ties to the community. We probably lost a few listeners when Taylor and I shouted Roll tide though. So we still, you know, we still love you. We do still root for Georgia

- When we're not. No, it was in my wedding vows. I have to say. Roll tide.

- So, but so tell us about family medicine and sports medicine. So tell us a little bit about what type of patients you treat.

- Yeah, I mean, we take care of everybody from the newborn to folks that are advanced in age. I used to, when I was in Tuscaloosa, we used to do a lot of labor and delivery. I don't deliver babies anymore. They're never born during the day. They're always born in the middle of the night. But we do, we do pediatrics in our, in our practice, we do adolescent medicine, we do adults, we do geriatrics, we do some GYN women's health issues. Like I said, the only thing we really don't do anymore is deliver babies. And it just became kind of difficult to do all of it at the same time. Yeah. The sports medicine part is, is, well number one, it's, it's probably less than 20% of my practice.

- Okay.

- For the most part it's volunteer work. A lot of it doesn't pay very well, but it is another thing that I enjoy doing. I just felt like coming out of medical school, and this isn't everybody's philosophy, but it, it seems like I spent a long time learning a lot of different parts of medicine in medical school. And so to kind of ignore that and concentrate on one area didn't seem like it made much sense to me after the investment that you had made in it. Right. So that's kind of the, the reason I took the direction that I took.

- Yeah. With family medicine being so broad, we've kind of hit on that in a few of our episodes. Especially with launching a family medicine residency program here in the next year with the, with the need for pediatrics and OB GYN services that can certainly lead to access to care for that population. Which is something that we definitely need. And it's interesting also that you have the Mercer background 'cause we now also have that partnership with the Mercer School of Medicine. So I assume you'll probably be involved in that in some way.

- Yeah, maybe So. I've got several of old classmates that are a part of that in Macon. So yeah, we'll see.

- Very cool. Very cool. I'm interested about the sports medicine piece. I know you said that's less, less than 20%, but what does all that entail?

- We do, we do a lot of, we do a lot of volunteer stuff. I have been the team doctor for Valdosta High School, gosh, probably for 18 to 20 years, still do their physicals. Some, I'm, when I went to go volunteer coach at Val Wood, that kind of took a backseat for a few years while I was out there coaching. But I, at the same time I was doing it, I was also coaching at Valdosta Middle School for seven or eight years. And

- What sport

- Coached? Football.

- Football. Okay.

- Yeah. Dur Dirk Carroll. And, and, and I coached together for several years at Valdosta Middle School. And same thing with Valdosta State. I've been their team physician since the mid, early to mid two thousands, like maybe around 2003, 2004. And again, it's not something you do for any kind of financial gain. I don't get.

- Right. That's kind of like, you know, like you said, volunteer. Yeah. Yeah. You're giving back to the community and to the sports that kind of raised you.

- Yeah. I mean I think at one point in time my contract with Valdosta State was, they made me auxiliary staff, so I got to use the rec center. Oh, there you go. That was like my reimbursement. And then we, we do volunteer, we do physicals at the office. We do, you know, mass physicals a couple times a year where some of the physicians around here come over volunteer and help me do 'em because we'll do, you know, a couple hundred in a day. But we also do physicals at the office every day. And for the different schools, not necessarily just Alta, we do 'em for Lowndes, we do 'em for Georgia Christian, we do 'em for Val Wood, do a lot of them for Hyland. And yeah, it's, you know, that, that, that role's changed a little bit because for a long time it was every Friday night on the sidelines for home and away games for Valdosta in the fall and then on the sidelines every Saturday for the Valdosta State games. So, and then, you know, injury clinic or, or whatever we did on Sundays. And now most of it is Saturdays on the sidelines with VSU.

- Yeah.

- And so, yeah, it's been, it's been a, it's been kind of a great community to do this in. I'm the, the director of sports medicine for Valdosta State University. The medical director I should say. They have great staff over there that in the academic department. So.

- So what, I have two boys that are school age. What sports do you see the most injuries in? Do

- You take, you know, believe it or not, it's cheerleading and gymnastics.

- Wow.

- Cheerleaders gymnastics have almost a 100% injury

- Rate. Wow.

- But yeah, we do all sports. We do, yeah. We do baseball, we do soccer, we do basketball. I used to do your husband's physical Yeah. When he was in high school

- And now he's following your path as far as community volunteering. 'cause he's the community baseball coach at Valdosta Middle.

- Yeah. Well they get, they get their hooks in you.

- There's something about it.

- Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. We do, we do all the, all the sports for, for all the schools. And you know, the big one that's come along recently is the girls flag football.

- Oh yeah. - There's a ton of girls playing flag football.

- Yeah. I, I've, I saw them practicing out at Lowndes one afternoon. I thought that was awesome. I think they just started that right.

- Couple years ago. And

- Volleyball's gotten big too. Dunno, volleyball's gotten

- Really big, which is awesome. I mean it's, you know, it's another sport, especially for girls that don't like soccer, that don't like basketball. I, I tried to push my daughter towards golf because that's kind of one of the things we did in my family growing up and I never really even thought about that. Golf is not a very social sport.

- Yeah. It's

- Not, you have to kind of like be by

- Yourself, but it's probably the least one that you would get injured. Right?

- Oh yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we, we take care of, of all the athletes around here and, and we've got a great orthopedic community around here. So if, if things get to the point where we need some type of a surgical intervention, we have great orthopedic surgeons around here that, that are available to, to the athletes too.

- And as far as prevention goes, just from sports injuries, while we're on this topic, what is like the number one thing that people can do, stretch or proper gut beforehand? Like what's the best, you know, way to kind of prevent sports

- Injuries? I, I think a lot of it depends on what they're doing. Yeah. I mean, taking care of your nutrition, taking care of your hydration, especially coming into the summer months in South Georgia is really, really big. People don't take into account the humidity.

- Yeah.

- And so, you know, when the humidity gets above 70%, you really, really have a hard time getting rid of body heat. So your body sweats more in response

- To it. Which is most of the time here I feel like. Yeah. Sorry. Which is like 24 hours a day starting in about

- June. So yeah, hydration is a big one. A lot of it, you know, again, depends on the sport. I have a lot of my friends that that, that do CrossFit.

- Yeah.

- And so their preparation for doing, doing CrossFit is completely different from somebody's preparation that's say a triathlete or Yeah. That that runs. So I think you really have to take into account specifically the sport.

- Yeah. I think that's a good, it's a good thing that so many people are active in these different areas, sports or CrossFit, getting out there and moving their bodies. But certainly need to be prepared and, and one reason you should, they always say before you start a new exercise regimen to consult with your doctor. So let's talk about the need to have a primary care doctor and what benefits that adds because a lot of people don't have one per se and they may just like go to the urgent care or the ER when they feel sick. So what benefits does having a primary care physician add for, especially for those that may not have a sick illness. You know, they think they're healthy, they think they're well. How do you encourage people

- To Yeah, I think the big thing is again, kind of like athletes and injury prevention is we're trying to do illness prevention and there's a big difference in primary prevention where we're trying to actually prevent illnesses from occurring as opposed to secondary and tertiary prevention where you've already have an illness and now we're trying to keep it from getting worse or keep you from having complications because of it. Yeah. I I think that, you know, the importance of having a primary care physician is because you get follow up on some of that. I think there's some misconception out there about what we're able to do in a finite amount of time for people. You know, I have, I've had people come in and say I want you to order that lab work that tells me if I have any kind of cancer. And I'm like, ah,

- Yeah.

- You know,

- Everyone's self-diagnosed

- Themselves. You know, they've done the research, they got in, I'm the lab of work that tells me if I have this, I'm like, that's not really how it works. So a lot of it in primary care is establishing a relationship with the patient, understanding the patient, what they do on a daily basis. We do the, the, for lack of a better word, the medical part. We do the physical exam, we do lab work, we do imaging studies. But then also the, there's the part of understanding the patient and how they live life. And so my recommendation for somebody that's say 75 years old isn't just based on a single patient that's 75 years old. It may be based on a patient that's 75 years old that takes very little medication and is really active versus a patient that's 75 years old and takes a few medicines and has a couple of medical issues. And so you don't understand that if you get a Polaroid snapshot of somebody in a convenient care or an emergency room.

- Right.

- And we kind of like to follow the patients along instead of just getting a snapshot of who that patient is and, and what their medical condition or what their general health is at that moment in time. And our, you know, our convenient cares, our walk-in clinics, our ERs, you know, they've got a purpose.

- Right.

- But typically the purpose of those places is not for long-term primary medical care.

- Sure. And I've heard that, I've heard from patients before that they'll have an issue, they deal with it, they just, you know, they ignore it. I guess I should say just live with the issue for so long and then they go to the ER and expect the ER to be able to, you know, fix the issue. But really the ER is for stabilization of emergency situations. Sure. And so if it is a more chronic situation, they're really just gonna check to make sure you're stable and then refer you to your primary care and, and then the patient can be dissatisfied 'cause they, they assume that ER is going to fix that issue. So that's kind of a misconception I've heard throughout just various scenarios. But that was, is a prime example of the primary care needs to be there for those issues that you, you can't, that you are dealing with over time.

- Yeah, sure. - Versus the emergency room who's there just to stabilize or treat an emergent situation to keep you from, you know, having life altering issues.

- Yeah. A hundred percent. I don't, I don't have any

- Okay. Any disagreement with that. I just, I I, I heard that scenario from someone recently and I'm like, wow. I guess I just never realized that. Some people, you just don't know what you don't know. So an average

- Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of shocked at we do have people sometimes that get upset because they get admitted to the hospital after they went to the emergency room.

- Yeah.

- You know, and that's just like,

- Well that's,

- This is kind of the front door.

- Yeah. You Yeah. That is how you get admitted usually. So you can seldom you can go to the primary care doctor and you recognize an issue that needs to be treated and they can admit you to the hospital, but Yeah. Yeah. We admit otherwise

- We from the office to the hospital.

- Yeah. - You know, hopefully not on a routine basis, but we do it periodically. But, but you know, but most of what we're doing is trying to prevent people from having to come to the hospital.

- Yeah. And we do a lot of promotion for urgent cares. But we always do that with the ankle in mind. We would rather you go to your primary care if you can, if, if you have a primary care provider and you can get in, in a appropriate amount of time for whatever you're dealing with, we always want you to go see that primary care provider. 'cause they know the history, they have the background, but in the event that you can't, and it's a non-emergent issue. We have the urgent care option.

- Yes. We love our urgent care. So I visited them several times. I had another thought before we went on the primary care lane was that, you know, we were talking about injuries and preventing injuries and then like, you know, consulting your physician. I was thinking about how people keep saying that pickleball is injuring senior citizens because they're not very active and then they go out and play pickleball and they're getting all these pickleball injuries. Is that something you're

- Seeing? Yeah, I'll see a few, you see a few Achilles injuries and calf injuries and knee injuries. I mean, hopefully it's a little bit less wear and tear on the shoulders and the elbows than tennis is.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, I mean it is just, there's a, there's a, there's a way to enter into exercise if you haven't been very active for a while and maybe we need to take it a little bit slower sometimes.

- Yeah. That's what

- Say As opposed to suddenly hopping off the couch or hopping outta the office chair, entering a pickle ball pickleball, tournament pickleball.

- It probably depends on your competitive level too. I guarantee that most people getting injured are the ones that are the most competitive. They're just like going there ready

- To Yeah. I don't play because I know how I am. And I would be like a hundred percent both feet in the water if I did it. And I'm like, I, I don't need one more hobby. You know?

- But I have also heard that that is causing a lot of injuries. Yeah. Because they're, they're going out there,

- There's a lot of people that are that way.

- Yeah.

- You know, nobody just dips a toe in the bathtub sometimes. They're just all the way in.

- Yep. Yeah. I mean I'm definitely competitive, but it's just so hot outside that I can't

- Well they've got the indoor ones now.

- Yeah, bet They have the indoor pickle mall.

- So I haven't, I haven't gotten that. We kind, we're, we're really evolving as a community. I feel like we have a lot of options to do so many different things. I

- Was shocked at the day after the hurricane. I was coming down Patterson Street about 7 30, 8 o'clock in the morning and there was about 20 people

- Yeah.

- On the pickleball court. Pickleball. They had pickle court, they had here on the ones on Patterson Street side, they had kind of converted to little, you know?

- Yeah. - And there were like 20 people out there the day after the hurricane.

- Yeah.

- I mean, that's how people are, people are like, not gonna miss it. Not gonna miss my

- Walk away. They're addiction. The rest of us. Were trying to survive in our houses with the power.

- Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna be hot and sweaty, you might as well be hot and sweaty playing pickleball.

- That's right. That's true. Well, the thought about that is then there's no hot shower afterwards,

- But if you're that hot, the cold shower is probably a little more bearable,

- I guess. I guess so. I just thought that was interesting. I saw that. Yeah. On like a news article or something. I was like, all the elderly are getting injured from playing pickle. Take it a little ea take it easy.

- Well it's, it's like all the fads.

- Yeah.

- You know, all the fads are that way. I'm, you know, when I'm not picking on any particular sport, but there is, you know, there certain weightlifting sports now, and I've had friends of mine that were in their forties that had not done anything since we were in high school. And I'm like, you, you didn't even lift in high school and now you're 48 years old and you're gonna start lifting things above your head. You need to be super careful. You're about two inches away from a bad back injury.

- Oh yeah.

- You know, so, and plenty of people would went and did fine.

- Yeah. - And then there was a few that I, you know, it was like I told you, you know,

- So even with running, you could easily injure yourself.

- You'd injure yourself doing anything.

- Yeah. And you think running would be so easy. Oh

- Yeah. Speaking of the one who fell off the treadmill and sprained my ankle and was on a scooter for six months. So yeah, you can really,

- You could injure yourself to an aerial yoga.

- You could, although I never did that. So as, as, as the years I spent hanging upside down in hammocks, I never hurt myself. But I got on that treadmill and took me out. So you gotta be careful. It's all about

- Instruction. You have to step in the air.

- Yeah. As

- Soon as you get on the ground, that's a

- Problem. That's

- Right.

- That's right.

- So do you have a question?

- Oh, I was just gonna say, so you know, you've been here a long time. You've seen a lot of things evolving. What is the most exciting, exciting thing that you kind of see happening in our community in regards to healthcare and just the dynamics with the growth?

- I mean, I think, I think the direction that South Georgia Medical Center is going in is exciting. And I mean, we've got a lot, we've got work to do. We have community outreach work to do. But the direction that South Georgia Medical Center is going in the direction that the administration's trying to move South Georgia Medical Center to, to a medical facility that is here to take care of Valdosta Lowndes County and the surrounding area. You know, I know we've got a lot of construction going on. We've, we're adding physicians and specialties every day and at, at, and I don't necessarily think that the goal is for us to become Mayo Clinic or the goal is for us to become Shands or Emory. The goal for us is to become the best medical care facility that we can have in this area to take care of an area that's really, really growing. I mean, I can't tell you the number of patients that I see in the office. And I always ask, I have patients that, that, that come in. New patients that are from Fort Lauderdale or Miami, or, I had a husband and wife. She was a former hospice nurse and he worked in, I think, aviation sales and they were here from Texas. And so I always ask these people like, how did you pick Valdosta? And the answers are always super interesting. I mean, I did have one couple that told me they moved here because Wild Adventures was here. Oh wow. And I just went

- And they probably go one.

- I'm like, really? But I mean, every, everybody's got their thing. Yeah. But, but, but almost inevitably they all say, I mean the community was great. We had come and visited family here before and people here were really friendly and the economics were such, you know, we could get a job, we could, we could have a place to live and it wasn't going to cost us as much as it was costing us where we were at. Yeah. Where we were at was the people were not very friendly and standoffish. Yeah. And so, you know, it's, it's an area that's growing and it's growing for a reason. And it's to go along with that South Georgia Medical Center seems to be moving in a direction to develop and take care of that community. And so to me that's the most exciting thing that we've got going on in our community now. And I'm, and I'm, you know, I grew up here. I've seen, you know, I remember Dr. Coleman, you know, gi giving me stitches at the old South Georgia Medical Center, er when, you know, when I got my chin busted open at Pendleton Park. Well, Pendleton Park's not even there anymore.

- It's, - It's parking for South Georgia Medical Center. So I've seen the medical community grow. I used to hang out in my dad's pharmacy and you know, Dr. Campa and Dr. Barker and Dr. Grow would come over and drink coffee periodically. Yeah. Or get, you know, get a coke out of the Coke machine or, you know, whatever. So I mean, I've, I've seen how the community has, has grown and developed over the past, you know, 50 years. Yeah. And I, and, and I think the exciting thing is the direction that, that South Georgia Medical Center's moving in now. I mean, it, it's, yeah. We're trying to do what's right for the community and have at the same time good customer relations.

- Yeah.

- For lack of a better word with, with our community.

- So we've always had great medical staff, obviously you've been here for a while, but I think having the right leadership in place makes all the difference to have the right vision. The partnership between leadership and the physicians. The partnership between our nursing team, I mean, it takes everyone to get on the same page and be like, Hey, we wanna do what's right for our patients. We wanna do what's right for our community and we're all smart enough to do this. We all, if we just band together and imagine what we can create for this area. I mean, it truly is like you, you can imagine. I mean, it's endless, right. I mean, we can be something absolutely amazing and we're on our way there. We, I mean, I think we're amazing as we are right now, because we just have the best people working on our teams that are bought in, that are wanting to do good. But it is exciting to think like 10 years out what this could look like if we continue at the rate we're going with the right people to building on these programs. The partnership with Mercer, the influx of physicians, the, the teaching arena from medical spaces and the growth in the community. It is exciting to be like, you don't know what this could be. And it could be

- Yeah.

- Far beyond what we just see in our pet. I

- Mean, it would be great not to, to have fewer and fewer and fewer patients that really needed to be at another medical facility that we wouldn't have to have that time in the air flight helicopter or that time in an ambulance going to another medical center to receive treatment when that time could be saved by giving that patient treatment here. Now, I mean, we've gotta, we, we, we've gotta be equipped and trained and, and ready to do that. And we're getting there, I think, and there will still be a always patients that, that need the care in

- A Yeah.

- In a, in one of those tertiary care centers. But if we can increase what we're able to do here and minimize that time spent in transit to get those patients more immediate care here, I mean, that's gonna be fantastic. And, and you know, and again, I think that the, the real push towards community customer service has, has, has made a difference because number one, that there's a lot of people, not everybody, but there are a lot of people that are angry and a lot of people that are, that are irritated by all kinds of things in the world. You know, there's people that just get triggered by all kinds of things. And, and it, it's not, it's not everybody, it's not even a majority of people. But there are a few. And then when you add on that people that are sick that don't feel good.

- Absolutely. Yeah.

- People aren't in the best mood when they don't feel good. And so it takes a special person on the front line. You know, the people that do our, our intake people that are, that are our techs, people that are our nurses to take care of people with a smile on their face and people, pleasant people. When those people don't feel good, that's a tough job.

- Yeah.

- So I I again,

- It is,

- I think the exciting thing is

- Yeah.

- The way that, the direction that South Georgia Medical Center's moving.

- Yeah. And I think we probably underestimate a little bit the number of people I think you kind of hit on this, that come from surrounding counties and the, the rural communities that surround our area, that also utilize our services. 'cause we do have a large rural population all around Lowndes County. So the ability for them to get care as close as they can here versus having to go to a larger facility that's further away. 'cause we know that that adds an unnecessary burden at times from travel and lodging and things like that. So, and just being able to have family close by when you're experiencing something like that.

- Definitely. Well, I think we're wrapping up, but I have one last question that we always ask at the end.

- Can I fold a friend? Do I have

- A lifeline? I don't think you'll have to, I don't if if your friend will know, but it's, what's your favorite meal to eat here? Either in the cafeteria or in the allspice?

- Oh, at, at South Georgia Medical Center. Oh, listen, south Georgia Medical Center has a top three cheeseburger in the spice. The, the daddy daughter dance. My daughter one year asked to come to the spice to have a cheeseburger for the day, the dance. That is awesome. I said is awesome. Said, I'm gonna take you out to dinner before the dance. Where do you want go? And she said, can we go get a cheeseburger at, at the, she called it.

- Wow. I love it.

- She called it the big office back then. Yeah. Because it's the big office and then the office.

- That is funny.

- Yeah,

- That is is sweet. That's a good advertisement. Yeah. I mean we have heard that several times is the

- Cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers are fantastic. They're,

- Well, people

- Don't tell my patients that I've eaten cheeseburgers and the spice.

- I know. It's everything to moderation. Yeah. Listen, we get a lot of answers to this question. And they're usually not all healthy ones. Yeah. Most of 'em are not. But

- Again, the moderation,

- If they're being honest, they're not healthy ones.

- Well, we appreciate you taking time to sit down with us. Yeah. Enjoyed it. I know you have a very busy practice, but we did wanna just share a little bit more about your story. You've been here a while and just introduce you to those that may not know you or just to get more, to know more about what you do in your office. So anyone interested in becoming a patient of Dr. Hogan's, you will put the link below so that you can do that. And we look forward to hearing back with you

- Soon.

- Great. Thank you guys.

- And thank you to everyone who's tuned in. And remember, you can always submit your topics and questions at smgc.org/podcast.