In the latest episode of the Plant Based On Fire podcast, Bryan sits down with the remarkable Dr. Ted Barnett, also known as Dr. Veggie. Dr. Barnett is the president and board chair of the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute (RLMI), a pioneering organization he founded in 2015 to transform the practice of medicine through plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine.
Insights You'll Gain From This Episode
Transformative Power of Plant-Based Nutrition: How a simple diet change can reverse chronic diseases.
Overcoming Business Challenges: The resilience needed to scale a health-focused business.
Technological Integration: The role of virtual platforms in expanding healthcare reach.
Environmental Connections: Linking personal health to planetary well-being.
Practical Advice: Tips for healthcare professionals wanting to start plant-based or lifestyle medicine initiatives.
The Journey of Dr. Veggie
Dr. Barnett's journey into the realm of plant-based nutrition began over three decades ago. An accomplished interventional radiologist, Dr. Barnett experienced a pivotal moment in 1990 after reading Dr. Dean Ornish’s work on reversing heart disease through lifestyle changes. This "aha moment" led him and his family to adopt a vegan lifestyle in 1991.
"In my mind, plaques are made out of concrete, and they weren't going anywhere. The idea that they could actually reverse was just really amazing to me,"
Dr. Barnett shared during the interview.
This personal transformation laid the groundwork for his professional mission to integrate plant-based nutrition into mainstream healthcare. As a senior partner at Borg and Ide Imaging in Rochester, NY, Dr. Barnett combines his high-tech medical skills with low-tech, impactful solutions through RLMI.
Founding Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute
In 2015, Dr. Barnett established RLMI to make lifestyle medicine accessible and effective. The institute’s flagship program, the 15-Day Whole-Food Plant-Based Jumpstart, has reached over 2,500 participants across 44 states and nine countries. Certified by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, this program has shown significant improvements in cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, and overall well-being.
"We used to run it in our office, but the pandemic pushed us to pivot to a virtual platform. This silver lining allowed us to expand our reach significantly,"
Dr. Barnett explained. The move to online delivery has enabled RLMI to overcome geographical limitations and make a global impact.
Overcoming Challenges in Scaling
Scaling a health-focused business comes with its unique challenges. Dr. Barnett emphasized the importance of resilience and strategic partnerships.
"We pivoted to Zoom during the pandemic, which turned out to be a great move. We now have participants from all over the world,"
he said. This adaptability has been crucial in maintaining RLMI’s growth and effectiveness.
Innovative Programs and Future Goals
RLMI is continually innovating with programs like the Lifestyle Medicine Grand Rounds and the Pale Blue Dot Community. These initiatives connect lifestyle medicine with planetary health, fostering a holistic approach to well-being.
"There's no point in having healthy people on a sick planet. We need to take care of both,"
Dr. Barnett emphasized.
Practical Advice for Healthcare Professionals
Dr. Barnett shared valuable advice for healthcare professionals interested in starting their own plant-based or lifestyle medicine initiatives:
Join the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM): Engage with a community of like-minded professionals.
Get Certified: Take the boards from the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine to establish credibility.
Explore Practice Models: Consider concierge practices or shared medical appointments to make the business model viable.
Stay Persistent: Overcoming obstacles requires dedication and a clear vision.
Dr. Ted Barnett’s journey from interventional radiologist to plant-based advocate is a testament to the transformative power of lifestyle medicine. His work at RLMI is changing lives and promoting a healthier planet. As he aptly put it,
"The animals do not care why you are not eating them. They are just happy you aren't."
This episode of Plant Based On Fire offers invaluable insights and inspiration for anyone interested in the intersection of health, business, and sustainability.
Listen to "Dr. Veggie's Vision: Transforming Healthcare with Plant-Based Nutrition". Join us in supporting a plant-powered revolution!
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Episode’s Transcript
Please understand that a transcription service provided the transcript below. It undoubtedly contains errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions.
Bryan (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome to Plant Based on Fire where we talk about plant based businesses and their inspiring stories to thrive in our growing industry. I'm your host Bryan and joining us today is Ted Barnett, Dr. Ted Barnett, also known as Dr. Veggie and he is the president and board chair of Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute, which he founded in 2015. Welcome to the show, Ted.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (00:28)
Thanks, it's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Bryan (00:31)
I have to say we've got a little bit of a kindred spirit here because I grew up in Rochester, New York and here you are running the show from Rochester. It's a great little town, isn't it?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (00:42)
We love it. We love it here. No, I did not grow up in Rochester, so, but I will say it's a good, it's a good.
Bryan (00:46)
But you, I think before the show you said you raised your family there and you've been there for a while it sounds like.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (00:54)
Been here a while, yep.
Bryan (00:57)
Awesome. Well, I want to dive right into it and just help us fill in the gap on Dr. Veggie in general. What inspired you to found Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute and what were you hoping to fill in the gaps of like the existing healthcare system?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (01:15)
Yeah, well, you know, I've been an environmentalist all my life. I grew up in Connecticut, Westport, Connecticut on Long Island Sound. I was always really interested in wildlife and nature. In fact, I identified as a fisherman, actually. We used to go fishing all the time, you know, during nine months out of the year, both days of every weekend or clamming or crabbing or something along those lines. So actually, you know, when we became vegan, that was kind of a
a switch of identity. But you know, it's it's, you know, 33 years ago, actually, is when we decided to perform this experiment on our children, because, you know, any good parents should perform an experiment on their children, right. And so in 1991, we became vegan. And and part of that process involved changing my identity and saying, you know, I'm not a fisherman anymore. And I did actually, in order to make that switch, I had to promise myself I could have a lobster every four times a year.
Bryan (01:55)
Yes.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (02:13)
That never happened, but part of the mental gymnastics I had to play with myself was, okay, this is not complete. I can have lobster. Then after three months and it was time for a lobster, I said, I can live without it. I'm okay. So yeah, that's how we made the switch.
Bryan (02:27)
Yeah.
That is awesome. Such an inspiring story to hear that I'm hoping to do the same with my family that's growing up. So how do you emphasize the plant -based nutrition in your programs and talk to us about some of the wisdom you impart with the science aspects of it.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (02:36)
Great.
Sure, so I actually make my living, I'm a physician, but I make my living as a radiologist. I'm an interventional and diagnostic radiologist. So, you know, I train to perform angioplasties and put in stents and open up vessels and that's what interventional radiology is. We do a lot of catheterizations, we drain a lot of pus and we drain bile and we do things like that, things that require image guidance. So, and it doesn't have a whole lot to do with being plant -based to be perfectly honest.
Although we used to, I see lots and lots of bad arteries, arteries that are clogged up and through because of plaque and cholesterol. And it wasn't until I had my aha moment in about 1990 when I read the work of Dr. Dean Ornish talking about reversing heart disease and the randomized controlled trial, not only showing that you could stop the process, but that you could actually reverse the process. And in my mind, plaques are made out of concrete.
and they weren't going anywhere. So the idea that they actually could go somewhere that they could reverse was just really amazing to me. And part of reading Dr. Ornish's book, there's a section that he talks about how hard it is to get funding for lifestyle treatments. And that's when I had my sloping forehead moment, of course, right? You know, who's going to pay for this because there's no money in it. So.
Bryan (04:17)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (04:18)
Right? And in fact, there's still, honestly, there's still no money in it. I still make my living as a radiologist. You know, there are some plant -based companies and there's, you know, people who are starting to do teller radiology around, you know, the plant -based docs, which are now Love That Life telehealth. And so, you know, but I had to, felt like I had to kind of become an expert on this if we were going to raise our family this way. And becoming an expert means learning the science behind it.
And so that was in 1991. I probably get my first grand rounds talking about plant -based nutrition in the probably middle nineties. And I think we started, but we didn't actually start teaching a plant -based nutrition course when I say we, my wife and I, until probably around 2008 or so. And by the way, in 1995, actually, my wife and I became the co -coordinators of the Rochester Area Vegan Society. So we've been running the Rochester Area Vegan Society for
29 years, almost 30 years now. And, you know, it's funny when we took over the organization, RAVS, Rochester Vegan Society, we thought it was an old organization because it got started in 1989. It was six years old. Well, now it's, you know, well over 30 years old and we're still running it. We're not the revolutionaries who started it, but we are the bureaucrats who've kept it going. Yeah. And then around, like I said, around 2008, maybe a little later, I guess, we started
Bryan (05:37)
awesome.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (05:44)
teaching the six -week plant -based nutrition course, which we got accredited through the Rochester Academy of Medicine for CME, which is professional continuing medical education credits for healthcare professionals, mainly physicians. And about 15 % of the people who took that course were, took it for credit. We had almost 900 people take that course because we gave it for 10 years, I think. And so, yeah, thanks. We...
We have at least twice a year, sometimes four times a year. And so that was kind of, you know, we had kind of had practice talking about it. So then in 2015, we started Rochester Lifestyle Medicine. And we actually started out with a medical practice, which, you know, I used up a significant amount of my retirement account for that and never made any money. But the point was I wanted to be able to demonstrate that.
Bryan (06:37)
Yeah.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (06:40)
this could be part of medicine. We wanted to move the needle on the healthcare system, which, you know, even then it seemed like a disaster. It's been a disaster for a long time, as has the climate, right? And so I really was motivated by the idea of if we can teach people, however you teach people to become vegan, it's okay, right? Because like, right? I always say the animals do not care why you are not eating them, right?
Bryan (06:59)
Yeah.
That's right. They're just happy you aren't.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (07:07)
They don't say, you should eat. They say, no, you should eat me because you have the wrong reason. No, they don't want to be eaten, period. So they don't care. So that was in 2015 when we started that. And then in 2018, we developed our 15 -day whole food plant -based jumpstart, which was based on what we had learned. Because before that, we had been running something called the CHIP program. It's a complete health improvement program. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. But it's a longer program. It usually takes 12 weeks to run that.
Bryan (07:22)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (07:35)
It's a great program. And I always told people, you know, it's the chip program is like getting a kid, getting kids into the bathtub. You can't get them in and then you can't get them out. Right. Right. Well, that was the problem we had with chip. And so we developed our own, 15 day whole food plant based jumpstart, which is now one of the few programs actually certified by the American college of lifestyle medicine. And since we started it, we've had about 2 ,500 people go through it. We've been running it every month since 2018.
We used to run it in our office. We did the finger stick on day one with a lipid profile and the fasting blood sugar. And then we did it again on day 15. And that's when we discovered, wow, this thing really works. And we were putting 25 to 30 people through the program every month. And day 15 was always like the best day of my life because we could sit down with people and say, you know, your cholesterol dropped 150 points in two weeks. Right. And they say, yeah, and I haven't, and I haven't felt this good forever.
This is fantastic. Thank you so much. And so then the pandemic hit and in March 2020, we could no longer be bringing people into our office in these groups of 24. And so we pivoted and it turned out to be a silver lining. We never expected this to be a good thing, but for us, it has been great because since then we've become basically international. We've had...
patients from 44 states, nine different countries. Yeah, and we've had about 300 doctors from around the country refer patients and we're working on that. So yeah, we're trying to bring this into the healthcare system. We've put it on a very scalable platform. And we've got lots of facilitators and doctors in the wing. So we could be running hundreds of people through it every month. Thousands, thousands we hope, yeah.
Bryan (09:08)
Wow.
That is awesome. Yeah. I mean, congratulations. That's quite an accomplishment. I know. So I used to be the chief technology officer with MD live telemedicine, way back when. So I got, I have a ton of telemedicine experience throughout my career and I, and I love to see what Anthony's doing with love life telehealth and that whole thing. And I love what you're, you're bringing together with, with, the previous chip and now the 15 day jumpstart. That's awesome. Awesome stuff.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (09:27)
.
Okay
Right, yeah.
Bryan (09:52)
I'm curious though, if you know what I'm seeing in our space to a degree is a little bit of like those membership based doctors offices kind of a thing. Like, like I know I need the insurance in case I have to go to the hospital for something catastrophic, but I'd much rather pay you a couple hundred dollars a month to just make sure I can have a vegan doctor helping me live the life, do the day to day blood test or whatever I need to do to tweak my diet, exercise, whatever the regimen is.
Like you said, help me reduce the plaque, reduce the cholesterol, reduce the weight, the sodium, whatever it is that your struggle is. what's your, what do you see that happening in the Rochester area or in anything that you're working with?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (10:29)
Mm -hmm.
There are a few concierge practices in the Rochester area. And I know there's some around the world, around the country at least. Melissa Sunderman, who we work with closely, I feel familiar with her. She has gone into a concierge practice. She's one of the leaders in lifestyle medicine. But it's interesting, when I joined the Academy of, sorry, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine in about 2010, we had 130 members.
Bryan (10:38)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Mmm.
Awesome.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (11:03)
We now have over 11 ,000 members. I was on the board for a few years. I loved it. It's great. We go there every year. And people are experimenting with different practice models because this does not fit into the current crazy system we have.
Bryan (11:05)
Wow.
Yeah, absolutely. I have to go down my Rochester rabbit hole a little bit just because I don't get to talk with people from Rochester all that often. But I grew up I grew up eating at Nick Tahoe's in Rochester garbage plates. And so like this is literally a pile of cholesterol and meat on that front. And so I have tried to master my vegan version of this as healthy as I possibly can.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (11:27)
Yeah.
pleasure.
Okay, sure.
Right.
Yeah.
Bryan (11:49)
have, have you mastered your vegan garbage plate yet, or I don't know if that was your thing. Cause you weren't.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (11:53)
Well, that's a really interesting question actually. So, you know, I'm not the cook in the house, my wife is, but, you know, if you're familiar, I don't know if when the last time you came back to Rochester, but we have a restaurant here called the Red Fern and their version of the garbage plate is called the compost plate. Yeah. And so there is definitely a vegan version of it. Yep. You know, I don't, I'm not sure it's one of their healthier vegan entrees, but it's definitely, you know,
Bryan (12:07)
Yeah.
Nice. I like it.
For sure.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (12:22)
You know how it is to be a vegan restaurant. You can't just be a healthy vegan restaurant and survive. You gotta be able to appeal to people's palates as they are. So, yeah.
Bryan (12:27)
Right. Yep. That's for sure. Well, I, I certainly commend you on your efforts because I know, I went vegan for the health reasons in a big way and I just saw my cholesterol plummet as I went down my path and journey. And here I am not quite as long as you 14, 15 years in myself, but, for those that are watching, you can build a business and stick to your values. as you can see,
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (12:39)
Okay, great. Yeah.
Great, great, yeah.
Bryan (12:56)
Dr. Veggie is doing for sure on that front. I guess I'm curious, like in this post pandemic world that you mentioned, how critical is the technology platform? You're embracing the Zoom and all these things and how are they transforming the way you deliver day -to -day programs and care, it seems like.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (13:14)
Yeah, absolutely. And we are, we're not going back. I mean, we get people saying, can we do this in person again? And we love being doing it in person and there may be one -offs now and then, but in terms of actually being able to move the needle on the system, for us to be doing it in person just isn't possible. But we could be reaching potentially millions of people. We haven't had the demand yet. That's always the problem.
is getting that demand, right? But we have built the system and we're enjoying it. Now, when you call it a business, like I said, we still make our living. I still make my living as a radiologist. My wife and I are full -time volunteers with Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute. It is a nonprofit. We do have full -time staff and we do pay them. But as of yet, it's not what we call a big moneymaker. But we are here, we are available to, you mentioned concierge practices.
Bryan (13:57)
Mm -hmm.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (14:10)
We like to make ourselves available to doctors everywhere who would like to incorporate this into their practice, but don't have the time, right, to actually do the kind of education we do. So, you know, our 15 -day Whole Foods Plant -Page Jumpstart, which we run every month, involves 11 hours on Zoom over seven meetings. So we have seven sessions over 18 days. We call it a 15 -day Jumpstart, even though it takes 18 days, because there's a...
orientation day, that's three days before the diet starts. And so we meet with people in a way that the doctors really can't do. So that's why... Yeah.
Bryan (14:44)
Very cool.
I love it. How do you, I guess for me, I'm just thinking, I'm thinking ahead to Christmas already. And I'm like, can I just buy a 10 pack of your 15 day jumpstart and give it to everybody in their Christmas cards on that front? Cause there's so many people I want to say at least try it. I know maybe we should talk some more cause I do have the 30 day challenge on our website with the real men eat plants. And I think that would be,
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (15:10)
Yeah, sure. So, hang on, you just froze.
Bryan (15:20)
That would be really cool for us to collaborate on that piece of it too. But how do you envision scaling the impact and the reach with RLMI?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (15:32)
So it really at this point I believe is about marketing, you know, and whether we can get people interested. I think right now we're in a bit of a competition with Ozempic because people think, it's so easy. I can just, you know, do an injection and I don't have to change my diet. But we know that there's all these side effects with Ozempic that are gonna become more and more apparent and that we really do want people to eat the healthy diet. And one thing we say is like, look, you're a grownup.
You can do anything for two weeks. And, you know, it works for a lot of people. Maybe your friends are on Christmas. If you want to buy that 10 pack, we'd love to have them. You know, we do need a little buy -in from people. We do a, you know, an assessment, a readiness assessment before we start. We'd like to see people at least a seven or an eight before we bring them on. So, yeah.
Bryan (16:26)
Yep. I, I, I agree. So I give them the assessment at Thanksgiving and we'll make sure we, so yeah. I will continue to root for you and help push some people your way for sure. I guess it's, it's interesting to me to see how, how much healthcare still needs to change and, and how technology and new advances in testing and things like that are coming along.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (16:32)
That's it. Yeah.
Great.
Bryan (16:52)
What do you see as some of the big obstacles in integrating like lifestyle medicine into mainstream healthcare, I guess. And do you see some paths to overcome them?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (16:52)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, so that's the big challenge, right? We were basically we're marching into the belly of the beast and the beast is truly a beast. It's, you know, 18 percent of our GDP goes into health care. In twenty twenty two, we spent four point five trillion dollars and that was up like, I know, four or five percent from the year before. Just keeps growing. And the the things that always get attention are the ones that cost a lot for for two big reasons.
One of the reasons is that if you have something that's expensive, you can afford to hire lots of salespeople in three -piece suits to go out and push the product, right? And you can get the word out there. Our product is so inexpensive, and it's 300 bucks for this thing that's going to change your life. And it's only once, right? It's not like you're taking these expensive pills or injections every month. So that's the cost factor.
Bryan (17:44)
Yeah.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (18:04)
that sort of seems paradoxical that the things that cost more actually are easier to get out there. And then the other thing is just the high tech intrigue that people have. I call myself the high tech doctor with low tech solutions because I understand how intriguing and fascinating the high tech stuff is. I do it, right? I read CAT scans, I do ultrasound, I put catheters in people and it's hard to learn to do that stuff. And...
you know, would I rather do that or would I rather, you know, do this drone on and on about how you ought to eat better, right? You know, so it's a challenge. We're, you know, we're chipping away at it. And I think, you know, the fact that there's this epidemic of chronic disease is helping, unfortunately, in our situation. We also get a lot of great testimonials. I mean, the people who go through our program are so delighted.
Bryan (18:40)
Right.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (19:00)
about the unforeseen side effects. They join because they want to lose weight or get their cholesterol or blood pressure down. And then on day five, they say, you know what? My joints don't bother me anymore. I didn't even realize they were bothering me. But now I'm jumping out of bed in the morning. Where's all this energy coming from? And we say, well, you know, you put the right fuel into the body and it behaves a lot differently. You've been dumping kerosene into this gasoline car your whole life. Now you're putting gasoline in and no wonder you feel good.
You know? So, yeah.
Bryan (19:31)
That's for sure. Yeah. And, and you, you touched on this way at the beginning of when we started talking, but it, the environmental piece of this is a strong, strong component. I mean, I'm concerned in a big, big way that we've already passed many, many tipping point markers as a planet. And I'm very concerned about that. I have a brand new daughter at home, less than a month old basically right now. And I'm just like, will she,
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (19:48)
Great.
Bryan (19:57)
Will she be fighting for food like something out of a science fiction movie by the time where she's 50 years old and I'm, you know, 46 now heading heading that way. And it's just like, what, what was in store for my future? I think you have a community, right? Is it pale blue dot community? Talk to us about that and trying to connect the individual health to the bigger planetary picture.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (20:00)
Right.
Yeah? Sure.
Sure, so well, we needed a more robust platform to run our programs anyway. So, you know, because when we first started doing it, we were back in 2018, we were using Facebook groups for the sort of the meetings between the in -person part. And back then, about a third of people wouldn't use Facebook groups. And now it's more like a half won't. So when we pivoted in 2020 to the...
to the completely virtual remote program, we switched to the Google Classroom. Our daughter, our oldest daughter is a teacher and a music teacher. Well, she was a music teacher in Brooklyn at the time. And she said, dad, you ought to try using the Google Classroom. And because we're a nonprofit, it was all free for us. Google was very generous. We actually have a HIPAA compliant agreement with Google, which is great. So when we're collecting medical data, it's all secure.
So we used that for a long time. And then we realized there were limitations with that. And so we moved onto this platform. It's a community platform. It's a proprietary software that we're using and it's paleblue .community. And we refer to ourselves as being at the intersection of human and planetary health. And because there's no point in having healthy people on a sick planet. In fact, it's an oxymoron, you can't have it.
In fact, we're already discovering all these people suffering through these heat waves. They're not healthy, right? Doesn't matter what they're eating. It's not healthy to be overheated. So we try to recognize that. And we're basing it on the principles of positive psychology. So we want people to come away from our, it's basically a social media platform. It's a forum. We want people to come away from that feeling better about themselves.
not worse about themselves, which is what happens when you go to X or Twitter or Facebook and maybe even Instagram. I don't know. There's so much out there to waste your time on. And we tell people, you know, you should only spend a few minutes a day here. We don't want you spending hours a day here. And we use a subscription model. It's only five bucks a month, which is nominal. And the reason we do that is because we don't want to have to support it with advertising. Because as soon as you bring in advertisers and it's quote free, then,
Bryan (22:32)
That's right.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (22:47)
You are the product, your eyeballs become the product that are being sold to somebody who's advertising a product and is trying to sell something. Well, you know, there's so many reasons that's a bad idea. In medicine, it's a bad idea because you wanna be sure that the healthcare provider who's recommending something to you is recommending it because it really is good for you, not because that's how they make their living. So when you go to a doctor's office who...
Bryan (23:13)
That's right.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (23:15)
selling supplements out of our office, you should run, right? I'm not saying some supplements aren't good for you. Yeah, maybe they are. But if we do think that, we're gonna tell you to go to the supermarket or the health food store and buy them. We're not gonna sell them to you. So the bottom of every one of our pages on our main website, which is RochesterLifestyleMedicine .org, our main website, the footer on every page says, teaching skills, not selling products. And we just think that's so critical. And we've...
Bryan (23:28)
Let's hear it.
I love it.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (23:44)
transfer that over to our pale blue dot community because we really believe that's important that people can trust the information they're receiving there. Now, if I could just digress for a second, the reason we call it pale blue dot community is because of the pale blue dot. Are you familiar with the pale blue dot? Yeah, right. Yeah, Carl Sagan, exactly. And actually it's kind of cool because Voyager 1 was.
Bryan (24:02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carl Sagan, right? Yeah.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (24:10)
just in the news again, like the last couple of days, because it was out of touch for like seven months. It's out like, I think it's out by 15 or 16 billion miles now. It's not even in the solar system anymore. But back when it was only, it was just a juvenile, it was a teenager, it was only six billion miles away. It was like just, it was past Saturn, or maybe even Neptune, I can't remember. But Carl Sagan, who was on the imaging team back then for Voyager said, let's turn it around and aim it back at Earth. And,
Bryan (24:15)
Yeah.
I love it.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (24:40)
Take a picture. Well, Earth is this single pixel, right? It's this little blue dot, the pale blue dot. And he wrote a book, I think it was in 1994, he wrote a book called The Pale Blue Dot, in which he talks about this is the only home we've ever known. For all practical purposes, it's the only home we're ever going to know, because we're not gonna get to another place where humans can survive for a really long time, in spite of what people are saying about going to Mars.
You know, maybe a few rich people can go there for a little while, but they're probably going to get sick when they go there because of all the radiation and all that. It's not going to be a healthy place to be. So anyway, I just love that image of the pale blue dot. So if you go to our website, if you go to the pale blue dot community, part of what you can see as a non, if you're not logged in, you can actually get to the why the pale blue dot. And you can see my little, my little rant about that and why I just think it's so important. And I, you know, I think we cry every time I think about it. It's just so moving.
Bryan (25:12)
Yes. Right.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (25:36)
Because this is it. This is the only one we're going to get. No matter what people may think, this is it. So for you and your kids and my kids and our grandchildren, we got to take care of this place. So, yeah.
Bryan (25:36)
Mm -hmm.
Yep. Yep.
I agree. Well, that's a beautiful little segue for a moment because Voyager 1 and I are pretty much the same age. You know what I mean? I think it was launched a week or two after my birthday. So I'm as old as Voyager. So 77, yes. Star Wars baby and Voyager 1. So yeah, yeah. Well, you certainly have plowed your way into so much stuff with
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (25:56)
really?
Okay. Was that like 1977, I think?
Okay, okay. Cool, how cool is that?
Bryan (26:15)
with your doctor and the, the everything else that we've, you've unpacked and stuff, I guess you, you definitely have strong business acumen as well. I can tell what advice would you give to other healthcare professionals interested in starting their own sort of plant based or lifestyle medicine initiatives.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (26:35)
Sure, well the first thing I would do is join the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. And I'm guessing that for people who are already really interested in this, they probably already have, but if they haven't, they definitely should. They should also take the boards from the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine. Just to digress for a moment, I actually, I got my original boards in radiology in 1984, seven years after you were born. And then,
They didn't have boards in interventional radiology then. The inaugural boards were given in 1995. So I took the inaugural boards in interventional radiology. And then 22 years later, I took the inaugural boards in lifestyle medicine. So I highly recommend that. That was back in 2017. So those would be the first two things I do, join the ACLM, because there's all kinds of practice management.
courses and sessions when you go to the annual conference. I'm so excited the annual conference is coming up this fall in November. That's another thing I would love it. People should go to that conference for sure. If you do, you'll get to meet us because we're going to have a booth there. We are a platinum sponsor of the ACLM annual conference. And so those are the two things I guess I would do. And then you just got to...
Bryan (27:56)
It's awesome.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (28:01)
decide what it is you like. I mean, some specialties are gonna lend themselves more to this than others. Right now, concierge type practice may be more practical if you really wanna make a living at it. If you're part of a big healthcare system, you have to work with your healthcare system to make it possible for you to spend that much time with your patients because you can't just do it in 10 minute increments. You gotta spend time with people. Which leads me to actually,
sort of the fourth thing, I guess, which is, how many have I got there? You need to learn about something called a shared medical appointment. Bryan, have you heard of that? The shared medical appointment? Okay, so you've probably heard of CPT codes, or these five digit codes. When you see a patient, you bill for that, and the insurance company sends you money. Well, you get the same amount of money for that code, no matter how much time you spend with the patient. So if you spend 10 minutes with the patient, I mean, roughly.
Bryan (28:41)
I have not, no, no.
Yep.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (29:01)
If you spend 10 minutes with a patient, you get pretty much the same amount as if you spend an hour with them. But if you spend an hour with them, then that amount of money is spread out and you can't see very many patients. But the key is you can have more than one patient in the room at the time. So you could have 10 patients in the room and bill them all for that one CPT code. Say that CPT code pays $120. If you're doing that every 10 minutes,
Bryan (29:16)
Hmm.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (29:29)
you know, then you're making enough money to pay your office staff and whatever, but you're not making enough if it takes you an hour to do that. But if you are being in $1 ,200 in an hour, then all of a sudden you can pay your office staff and you can make a living. Now that's not gonna happen every hour for eight hours. The scheduling never works that way. In fact, that's the main problem with shared medical appointments is just getting people in the room at the same time.
Bryan (29:33)
Mm -hmm.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (29:55)
So there's a number of practices out there that are doing it and experimenting with it. And they usually maybe they do, I don't know, at least maybe one a day, maybe two or three a day of these shared medical appointments, but it does make it economically feasible. So shared medical appointments, look that one up. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan (30:09)
I love it. Very cool. I have not heard of that. I mean, I've worked with a couple of diabetes programs and stuff and they've been doing some, some things online and getting reimbursed. But yeah, I'll have to check into that for sure. I guess, as we try to wrap up today's episode a little bit, are there anything, anything on the future for Rochester lifestyle medicine Institute and new programs that you're excited about? And then.
What can we do as a community to help you?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (30:41)
Well, I'll answer that last question first, which we just want to see more patients. So, you know, get the word out on social media, your friends, relatives. We're very entertaining. It's a lot of fun to do it. It's not a huge time commitment, although it's an intense time commitment. And, you know, it's very motivating to see those results. So I call it motivational testing. Make sure you get your labs drawn before you start, before you make any big changes. And then...
It's usually in the week before the 15 days. And then right at the end, make sure you get your labs drawn then, within a week or so of ending the program. It's so exciting to see your blood sugar normalize, your blood pressure normalize, your cholesterol plummet. I mean, we've had people drop their cholesterol 200 points in two weeks. I mean, it's kind of outrageous, right? We've had people come off all of their diabetes medication, which is just phenomenal. I don't know if you know...
Hemoglobin A1c numbers, but you know, we had one of our very first patients in 2018 came to us in September with a hemoglobin A1c of 13 .6, which means his average blood sugar for the last 90 days was 350, right? By Christmas, so he goes on our program, by Labor Day, around Labor Day, by Christmas his hemoglobin A1c is 6 .0, now it's 5 .5, he stayed with it, totally normal now, doesn't have diabetes. In terms of new programs that we run,
Well, one of our favorite programs that we started a couple of years ago was what we call Lifestyle Medicine Grand Rounds, which is where we have an expert panel analyze an individual patient. So we get a case presenter. Oftentimes it's a resident or a fellow or some other lifestyle medicine practitioner with an interesting case. They make a PowerPoint presentation. It's all of course on Zoom. Usually we have two regular panelists and then we invite a
a guest panelist who's often somebody famous like Dr. Clapper or Dr. Neal Barnard, a number of other people who have participated in this. And then we present the case to the panelists and they analyze it. And we actually have poll questions throughout the presentation where we actually poll the audience. You know, we often have a hundred doctors show up for this. We'd love to get more, right? We're totally scalable. We could...
We could be reaching a lot more. So tell your doctor friends. We've actually built a library of these videos where you can hear about individual cases like the last patient earlier this week on Tuesday was a woman who was overweight and depressed but also had elevated pancreatic enzymes. And so they got her obesity and diabetes more or less under control. But the interesting thing was about, well, what's going on with her pancreas?
So, you know, these are real life situations, which, you know, it's all well and good to go to a conference that says, hey, put everybody in a whole food plant -based diet that's low in fat. And then you say, yeah, but I got this real person, you know, their mother -in -law lives with them and she's sick and whatever. So, you know, so that's the other program. Then we just started our Lifestyle as Medicine for the Planet series. So we've had a Lifestyle as Medicine series for, since 2016 actually.
We've been running it every month. First, we did it in person. Now we've been doing it live. And we've had Michael Greger do it a few times. And a bunch of big names have done those. Then we just recently started the Lifestyles Medicine for the Planet. And the person who kicked that off, I think, is somebody you know, Silas Rao, with Planet Healers or Climate Healers. And yeah, so check out what we do. We're just a laugh a minute. What can I say?
Bryan (34:18)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
I love it. No, you've got your fingers in a lot of different programs that can help in so many ways and shapes and forms. So we have to close it up. But what are the best ways to get in touch with all these cool things that we want to learn more about?
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (34:44)
Sure, well the best thing is to go to RochesterLifestyleMedicine .org and you can just Google Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute, it'll pop right up. Head over there, there's a link there to the paleblue .community. You can also go directly to paleblue .community, which is paleblue .community. It's a pun. But if you go to the Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute website, that has all our contact information. You can email us at info.
info at rock life med .org and only you know how rock is spelled. There's no K in there. It's R -O -C -L -I -F -E -E -D. Right? But it's probably easiest just to go to the website. Yeah, we'd love to hear from people and take a look at our community. It's easy to join. There's a 30 day free trial. After that, it goes to the exorbitant price of $5 a month. And we do have, there's actually a free course that we just posted, an introduction to plant -based nutrition.
Bryan (35:20)
That's right, RLC. That's right.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (35:42)
that my wife just got finished producing, which is based on all our years of experience of teaching this stuff. So yeah.
Bryan (35:48)
Awesome. We'll have to have her on the show next then, but it has been a pleasure, Dr. Veggie, to hang out with you for a little bit and get to know all about some cool things that are going on in my hometown. And we really appreciate your contributions and endeavors that you're doing to help change the world, the planet, the people, and save some animals. So thank you again for being here.
Ted Barnett, MD, FACLM (35:52)
Absolutely.
Absolutely, my pleasure, Bryan. Thank you very much.
Bryan (36:15)
That is all the time we have for this episode of the Plant Based on Fire podcast. Thanks again, Dr. Veggie for joining us and sharing your insights and experiences with us and our community.
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