Medicine Is The Best Medicine

0:03Conan O 'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. And here's Chris. I'm Chris. I'm here. Hi, Chris. Welcome to Conan O 'Brien. Hi, guys. Hey, Chris, how are you? I can't believe I'm here. I'm doing very well. Well, tell us, Chris, first of all, nice to meet you. And where are you right now? Pleasure's all mine. I'm in Chico, California. Oh, cool. All right. Very good. Yeah, that's all right. Chico, California. And, oh, look at your books behind you. You've got World War II, the Civil War. We could be friends, you and I. We have similar interests.

0:42I can tell, like you're always talking about like at the end of your show, you're like, you know, we're friends on the podcast. We're not friends outside. I got a gut feeling we'd be friends in real life without question or doubt. Well, first of all, I love you got some red in your hair. You got the cool stache. A little bit. Cool mustache. I like the mustache right there. It's nice. And you got a good broadcaster voice. You got a very good voice. I appreciate that. Thank you, Conan. Yeah. What's your profession? Are you a guy that like does the - I am a paramedic. Oh, you're a paramedic. Oh my God.

1:11Yeah. I very much like to be a broadcaster, but no, I'm a paramedic for now. Oh, yeah. You're only saving lives right now. Yeah. You really. You guys help more people than I do, I'm sure. Chris, let me assure you, what you're doing is so much cooler than any broadcaster I know. That is very cool. Tell us what it's like to be a paramedic. Tell us about it. It's very rewarding at times. It is the biggest compliment I receive in my life is being welcomed into a stranger's home during their time of need. Oh, wow. And the only way I can repay that is by doing my best. Okay. It's extremely rewarding at times, and at times it is absolutely difficult, very difficult.

1:50Well, when you first show up, you go in the room, let's say you enter the house, you go in, and I guess the first job is to try and ascertain what is wrong with this person, right? Yeah. Why did you call 911 today? Okay. I always introduce myself if it's available as a paramedic, and I say, hi, how are you doing? What made you call 911 today? Are you in any pain? What's going on? And we kind of have to go down the route of, is it a medical problem or is it a traumatic problem? And then from there, we treat, diagnose to the best of our ability and transfer them to the appropriate hospital. You are, first of all, it sounds like you're very calm in these situations, right?

2:27It just, you - I am. I'm more nervous about this than I have ever been. Like, there's blood everywhere on the radio. I'll just be calm as a cucumber. But Lisa was just telling me, like, Conan's on it too, and I'm sweating. Okay. All right. Well listen, maybe you need a paramedic. You should call someone right now. Later. Why did you call 911? I'm on the phone with Conan O 'Brien. It made me kind of nervous. That's right. I won't be the first, I won't be the last. So, okay, you're a paramedic and you - Yes, sir. You go and you don't have to call me sir. Just call me Admiral. You go into their home and let's say you notice, okay, this person's got a real problem and you put them in the ambulance and then you take them to the emergency room, do you just drop them off then or is there a handoff to the trauma surgeon?

3:13How does that work? There is a handoff report. And the handoff report is one of the most valuable things I can provide on most calls. I have access to like the patient's house, I have access to or the side of the road. I can see what happened to the patient. I can see their living circumstances and I can tell it to the nurse and doctor as well. So I'm usually, as the paramedic, I work alongside an EMT. The EMT, generally speaking, is the one that drives and assists me while we're not driving, and I'm in the back, and I provide a higher level of care. I provide IV therapy, cardiac monitor, and I have a list of medications I can give if appropriate.

3:47What? I didn't know the difference. We go to an appropriate hospital. There are different destinations of hospital, and myself or sometimes I have to call a doctor and decide which hospital is appropriate for this patient. Wow do you ever give the guy driving attitude that you have all these other responsibilities? Every day I would I'd be like hey how's the driving going? I'm very fortunate I'm back here giving medications and saving lives Hey you might nice left turn The guy's bleeding out and you're just bragging I would spend all my time bragging I'm going to turn you up I'm sorry I have the greatest EMT partner in the world We work really well together.

4:30He constantly challenges me. He's constantly asking me questions about this, that, the other thing. His name's Talon, he listens to the podcast too. Okay, well tell him I said, hey, shout out. What's his name again? Shout out, Talon, like a claw. His name is Talon? Whoa. You're rolling with the coolest EMT ever. Yeah, now I like him better. I know. Why am I talking to Talon? Yeah, Chris, you gotta step up. Let's get Chris in nickname. He's at work right now. I had to get my ship covered. Where's Rapier? No, I got enough nicknames. As in Rapier wit. No, that's a terrible, terrible nickname. Really bad.

5:01That one was really bad. Stiletto? Yeah. Ugh, that's not intimidating. Something about his stash. We'll call him the broom. Oh, God. You guys are so bad at this. The broom? No, that's bad. You go. Knife. Okay. Well, that's all better than my real nickname. What's your real nickname? They call me Rain Man at work. They call you Rain Man? Really? Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I play trivia with my coworkers. And when you're good at trivia. I'm really good at bar trivia. That's all right. Yeah, I'm good at trivia and chess. If they're mocking you for being intelligent and having knowledge, that's okay. Speaking from experience.

5:37I'm sure you know the feeling. I'm sorry. I mean, seriously. I've been mocked in the past. Yeah, but so what if I can't throw a baseball? Anyway, let's not dwell on that. Last time I threw a baseball, I had to call an EMT. So you get to the hospital, you have the patient. Yes, sir. Do you have to say like, okay, here's what I think it is. Does the surgeon ever have a real attitude? Like, I think I'll figure this out. Do they ever do that? Like, I think I got it from here. They went to seven years of school. I went to one. Yeah, there's a big difference. But I'm very fortunate. Again, the hospital I work in association with is we have some very fantastic doctors.

6:17I choose to work where I work because I work with a lot of really great people, including the doctors and nurses, other first responders in my area. Oh, come on, isn't anyone in your life a prick? I mean, come on. That's why he called here. Yeah, yeah, there are, there are. I have the utmost respect for everyone I encounter. There's gotta be one person at the hospital who's just the worst. We won't name them, but you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, Dr. Leno isn't very... Oh, good Lord. Anyway. I'm just picturing him in all denim scrubs. Do I hear you're having a heart attack? That's my Dr. Leno.

6:50Um, that's his siren.

6:57Any hoots, so I am very impressed by, this is a very impressive young man. You have, you've got skills. And tell us a little bit about your life. What's going on? Family, anything going on? No, no, I'm single. I have a great family. My mother's beautiful and perfect in every way. I love my mom. that's pretty much most of the feeling I have she was actually here this morning making me breakfast which was very nice because she knew I wasn't nervous for this oh that's adorable that's so nice you shouldn't have been nervous about this we're easy to talk to you know we're just folks I know I know but you're like I've been watching you Conan on and off for about 25 years oh wow on and off I listen to you guys every day why off you guys went off I had to take some breaks I didn't know you guys had a podcast I didn't know you guys had a podcast until I bought my new car which had Sirius XM Okay, well, clearly, we're not doing a good job marketing that.

7:54No, I'm telling everyone about it now. We have all those ambulance ads on the side of ambulances. That's from my law firm. Do you feel less nervous now that it's started? No, I'm more nervous. My heart rate is gradually rising. Okay, well, you need three cc's of diazoazin stat. That's what I would say. You're going to give me blood poisoning. I just made up a medication. I don't know what that is. I think so, yeah. okay good uh i grew up in berkeley california um i've not been back since but i went to school in san luis obispo and then i moved up to lake tahoe for a couple years what'd you do there in the covet 19 um i didn't really know what to do with uh myself um after college so i actually worked for the california state parks my first job out of college was as a wedding planner which is like one of the weirdest jobs um so i went from meeting people from the best days of their lives to the worst day of their lives which is that wait yeah you went from being a wedding planner to being someone who's going into homes where someone's face just blew up you know yeah yeah it's uh it's a it was a weird swing but um i did some i used to work on a fuels crew um i went back to school and became an emt and the emt portion besides history class was the the only class higher level education class i actually enjoyed and so i decided you know i want to be a paramedic and i did a I became a paramedic and I've been doing it now on and off for about five years.

9:26Hey, do me a favor, Chris B, and be honest. Would I make a good paramedic? I think you'd give a great report. I do. And I've seen you calm under difficult situations. If you can perform on stage, I think you can perform well on steam. But what about the whole part? It knows you're smart. What about the whole part where I need to... Be professional? Yeah, be professional. You may make a joke unprofessionally, but your editing team does a great job of cutting that out. You can't do that in real life. In real life, when I go in there and I start making jokes and we lose the patient, and we're all standing around the living room, and I'm like, hey, I smell someone's making goulash.

10:06You didn't apply a tourniquet because you had to stall for a bit. He had to do comb mustache guys. Yeah, yeah. And then the guy died. Yeah. Would I, yeah, that might not go well. Oh, well. You win some, you lose some. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised. Yeah. Do you think you do okay? No, I think you do okay. How do you do? Are you squeamish? That's the big thing. That's the big thing. I guess there are people that just see blood and they have a problem. There's a difference between seeing a video and seeing it in person. That's sad. And it's also not just blood, it's like every bodily substance besides blood too.

10:45Oh. So that, it's not just like, is this gross, or is this violent or gross? It's like - Poo poo and pee pee. It's also a smell factor. Well, wait a minute. Poo poo and pee pee. Now you can't be a paramedic and you're gonna say poo poo and pee pee. Well, we have a major release of poo poo and pee pee. We're heading in now. Is that how you talk to your kids? We've got poo poo and pee pee tech. We've got two poo poo, one pee pee. We need to administer diapers. Stat. Do people still say that stat? That was on shows when I was a kid. Like there was a show called Emergency and they'd be like, get in here stat.

11:23Occasionally I hear it in the hospital. Occasionally when I'm like walking through it but it is kind of in phase out to my understanding. How about do you still say clear when you're using the paddles? Clear, do you still do that? Absolutely, every time. I wish I could. You don't say gather round? Yes. No, you cannot be touching somebody when they get shocked, otherwise you'll get shocked too. Okay. Oh, I never thought about that. I want to try that. That's why. I would like to use the paddles. I'd like to say clear and then use the paddles on someone who doesn't need it, and then they do need it after I use the paddles.

11:50No, no, if you use it and they don't need it, they will need it immediately afterwards. Is that true? Yes, if you shock somebody with a defibrillator, you can kill them. Let me ask you something. Not that I'm, sometimes I just sort of think about about like what's the perfect murder. Oh. But let me ask you something, Chris, and please anyone listening, don't, you know, this is just theoretical. So I'm not gonna take responsibility for this. But if you use paddles on someone and you give them a heart attack and you want them out of the picture, can't you then call the hospital and go like, they had a heart attack.

12:20Oh, now I inherit their money, I guess. I mean, I wouldn't say that into the phone. I'm pretty sure I'd get in trouble if I shocked somebody that I need to be shocked. No, I'm talking about secretly. I'm talking about secretly. And he's not talking about you. He's clearly talking about him. Let me just carry an AED around with me. No, no, listen to me. I'm not talking about you, Chris. I'm talking about me. There's someone in my life, maybe, who I want out of the picture, and I use the paddles on them. Would a coroner be able to detect that? He did look at you. Would a coroner be able to detect that?

12:45Gosh, I don't know. I may have stumbled on the perfect murder. So we don't really use the paddles. We use these really sticky pads that leave a pretty heavy residue. So they would see the residue, and they would need to scrub them. But you can say he was happy. which is like$10 ,000. You mean he was, you can say he was having a heart attack and you did it and then he died. Oh, that's very good. You just sealed your own death warrant. But like, I want to make it clear, we don't usually shock people that have a pulse. That's very frowned upon in my industry. Consider it. Okay. All right. Okay. Have you ever used the paddles on any kind of food item to heat it up?

13:20Oh, darn. No. No, I have not. No, if you use the paddles on an egg or egg. I think that 200 joules for one second, I don't think it would be enough. Don't answer it. You don't think so? If you used the paddles several times on Eggo waffles that were completely frozen, would they be at all? I think it'd make popcorn pop. I think it'd make popcorn pop. Oh, that'd be fun. Hey kids, gather around. I'm gonna have to - Hey kids, let's have some popcorn. Clear! I'm gonna have to look it up later. Kapoom! Kapoom! Is that the popcorn? That's the popcorn popping, yeah. It's also an auctioneer who's having a stroke.

13:48Oh, get the defibrillator. Get the defibrillator on him. Right. And let him hold some popcorn. Oh no. That got really stupid really fast, Chris, and that's your fault. You let us down this road. I did, I'm sorry. You did. This is all your fault. To everyone listening, please don't use a defib pad on anybody unnecessarily. I'm glad you're here, Chris. And I agree with what Chris just said. Yeah, that's a very bad thing to do. And don't try it on an Eggo, maybe popcorn. I think we cleared things up. No, not on popcorn either? Okay. No, they don't sell these things privately. You've got to go through an agency.

14:26I know you're acting like it's at Costco. Hey, I'm here for the defibrillators. They're in buildings sometimes, like on the wall. No, they get it on the Costco. Welcome to Costco, how can I help you? I'm looking for an MRI, and a defibrillator. And let's see. I want an iron lung too.

14:47What are you doing? I'm building a hospital. You should come on by. Have you been to medical school? Nah. Hey, do you sell licenses here? You should come on by. Come on by if you ever have any trouble. My name's Conan. I got a hospital. It's right down. I'm on the third house on the left. Are you going out on Halloween? What are you going to do for Halloween? I have to work this Halloween. Are you allowed to dress up? I did dress up this past weekend. No, I went as Ned Flanders. Perfect. Oakley Doakley. Yeah, I can't really be. Howdy ho, Strokerino. That one. That's great. I had the glasses on and everybody thought I was Jeffrey Dahmer so I think it's the last time I'm doing the costume.

15:26Oh man. Well Dahmer, Flanders, same thing. I definitely can't do that as a paramedic. I do think that Ned Flanders would be a great paramedic. Ned and Marge would be my two votes. I would worry that Ned Flanders would just put it in God's hands too many times. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. You know, he'd be like - Too much. Yeah, he'd say like, well, it's the good Lord called and then can't interfere with the good Lord's plan as opposed to, no, no, he's just got a hangnail. Get in there and help them. I'm very impressed by this gentleman. Chris, do you have a question for Conan? I have quite a few, but I was really hoping you guys bring back remote episodes because that was my absolute favorite thing to watch you guys.

16:02Oh, cool. Even you guys just do the audio for the Grand Canyon. That'd be hilarious. You mean for the TV show or are you saying do it for a podcast? Or do remote as a podcast and release it on YouTube. Okay. I don't know the situation, but like even just do local ones like go to parts of California. Let's just say there's some things in the works. There's some plans in the works. Come do a ride-along, man. That can be your move. You and I on a ride-along? Oh, man. That's interesting. I'm a paramedic instructor as well. I can teach. I can do the crash course. Well, we all know how this is going to go.

16:36Lives will be lost but laughs will be gained. Conan will commit manslaughter and I will lose my paramedic license. No, no, no. You won't lose your license. But it'll get some good laughs, I think. It'll be a good bid. Hey, if all you lose is a career and we get some laughs, then who's to say we didn't lose? Have you guys ever had, I don't know, I hope you guys have only had positive interactions with us. Yes. I was just curious, have you ever had an interaction with a paramedic or EMT? I don't think I'm going to be serious. No, I mean, I've a couple of times been around elder folk who have needed that kind of assistance and paramedics, EMTs have come in.

17:12They're just always fantastic. Great. I mean, I can't imagine having a bad experience. That really warms my heart to hear. Yeah, it's true. It's true. People come in, they just have this body of knowledge and they're calm and immediately everything is better. Yeah. So I mean - I like hearing that. I really try to replicate that in my practice as well. Oh my God, yeah. No, if I was having a problem, I would want you to come through the door and then we'd spend like 10 minutes just talking about old Simpsons episodes. I would flatline and you'd be in a lot of trouble. Well, Chris, very, very nice to meet you.

17:46You're an impressive young man. I appreciate you saying that. You're a better Ned Flanders than Ned Flanders, in my opinion. Thank you. Yeah, very cool to talk to you. And tell your mom we said hello. Even cooler to talk to you guys. Of course, yeah, my mom's great. I know you guys are wrapping up, but I just want to say you guys helped me so much in my personal life. I'm on the peer support team here in my area. And like I always say, after we see something rough, you always have to laugh and then you have to sleep. And you guys give me so much to look forward to in my daily commute watching you guys on YouTube and just Laughter, thank you so much and even though I'm not even 30 yet.

18:22That's still I say laughter is like the best medicine You guys provide a lot of it. I would agree. I think The medicine as well some comedian said actually medicine is the best medicine. I don't know who said that but they were When the shit really hits the fan my tight five in the back of the I want Yeah When the shit really hits the fan, I want someone who really knows the stuff that you know. But that is very nice of you to say. And it does warm our hearts to know that people like you who are doing really good work are out there listening. It's very meaningful. So thank you. I appreciate it.

18:55You guys help more people than I ever can. I hope you guys keep doing what you're doing. You give me and so many other people something to look forward to each day. Wow. I really appreciate all you guys too. You guys are absolute legends. Wow, I'm going to cry. All right. Well, Chris, thank you so much. honor to talk to you really thank you have a great day honors all mine thanks Chris have a great day Conan bye guys Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien Sonam Ovsessian and Matt Gourley produced by me Matt Gourley executive produced by Adam Sachs Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf theme song by The White Stripes incidental music by Jimmy Vivino take it away Jimmy our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

19:41Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

20:16This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.