Healing Multiple Myeloma with Medicine, Music, and Mind

Many thanks to Ray Hartgen, a cancer survivor and author of several books, including "Me, Myself, and My Multiple Myeloma," for joining me on "The Art of Medicine with Dr. Andrew Wilner." Ray shared his journey with multiple myeloma that included a stem cell transplant six years ago. He continues to receive regular treatments to keep the cancer at bay. His personal experience has led him to become an active cancer patient advocate.

During our 30-minute discussion, Ray emphasized the importance of a holistic approach to health, engaging with the community, and the role of support groups and caregivers in cancer treatment. Ray also shared the excitement of writing his first novel, "Outflanked." Ray is a serious musician who uses music as a coping strategy and source of motivation.

Ray's nonfiction books include "Indy 500" and "Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh. 

Ray encouraged everyone to check in with their doctors at least once a year for a physical examination. His cancer was discovered on a routine blood test and might have gone unnoticed had he not shown up for his annual physical exam!

Ray invites anyone struggling with cancer or caregivers to contact him for emotional support. He can be reached at his website: www.rayhartjen.com

#cancer #multiplemyeloma #musictherapy #survivor

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Transcript

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (0:08 - 1:16)

Welcome to the Art of Medicine, the program that explores the arts, business, and clinical aspects of the practice of medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Wilner. I've planned a great program for today, but first, a word from our sponsor, locumstory.com.

Locumstory.com is a free, unbiased educational resource about locum tenens. It's not an agency. Locumstory answers your questions on their website, podcast, webinars, videos, and they even have a locums 101 crash course.

Learn about locums and get insights from real life physicians, PAs, and NPs at locumstory.com. And now to my guest. Today, my guest is Ray Hartgen, a writer and musician.

Ray is also a cancer survivor and the author of the book, Me, Myself, and My Multiple Myeloma, a patient memoir and fundraiser for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Ray's going to speak with us today about his approach to health challenges. Ray, welcome to the Art of Medicine.

[Ray Hartjen] (1:17 - 1:22)

Dr. Wilner, thank you so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it very much. Thank you for the opportunity.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (1:22 - 1:39)

Ray, I think your experience, you know, you didn't just have it, but you thought about it and you wrote a book about it and we're going to talk about that. But before we get to that, tell us a little bit about your background. It's like you were minding your own business until you got sick, right?

So what was the setup?

[Ray Hartjen] (1:39 - 3:36)

Yeah, you know, minding my own business, I think was, you know, it's kind of like the right way of saying it, you know, it's just, you know, living my life in a little bubble. I had good health. You know, I was an avid road cyclist and I metricized my workouts and my workouts as a 54-year-old were every bit as strong and powerful as they had been the previous five years.

So I was feeling pretty good until and I still felt good when I had a routine blood test that popped up an anemic score. My hemoglobin was a little low and we didn't know why. So we want, first of all, confirm that test.

And so we did another blood test, which did confirm it. And then it's like, well, okay, let's try to get to the root cause of this. Could be a bunch of causes for it.

Turned out after, you know, more and more sophisticated blood tests and a very uncomfortable bone marrow biopsy, it was determined that 90% of my bone marrow was cancerous with a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. So one of the messages that I have for the audience out there is, you know, definitely go see your physician at least once a year. And as part of that, get a routine blood test.

I was feeling good. Now, in hindsight, Dr. Wilner, I could see that maybe I was a bit fatigued, but give me a break. I was 54 years old, a full-time job, married with two children and expensive private universities.

Now, I had every right to feel just a little fatigued, right? But I felt great, yet at the same time, 90% of my bone marrow was cancerous. So, you know, it's those silent things kind of come up and sneak up on you.

And I consider 90% of my bone marrow to be an early catch. You know, it had not leached into my bones yet. So when I started treatment, I didn't have to worry about radiation treatment and the like.

I could just get started with kind of the routine induction treatment for multiple myeloma.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (3:38 - 3:39)

So there is a treatment?

[Ray Hartjen] (3:39 - 6:39)

There is a treatment. It's an incurable disease, but there is a treatment. When I was first diagnosed, they said, hey, Ray, we're going to get you on an induction treatment, a couple of immunotherapy drugs, try to, you know, maybe we just get the multiple myeloma under control at that point in time.

But if not, it's going to lead into a stem cell transplant. And that would probably be, you know, after three to six months of an induction therapy. And, you know, Dr. Wilner, I was going to be an overachiever. I know I was like three to six months for stem cell transplant. I'm going to do it in three months. And, you know, so I set off to be the best cancer patient ever.

You know, I was I knew that the stem cell transplant was going to take it out of me physically. So I'm like, all right, what can I do about my physical conditioning, my nutrition? I'm going to attack this, you know, for for all that diagnosis process.

I had been I'd been sort of like a punching bag, lots of blood tests. I hate needles. You know, the bone marrow biopsy, it was like I was just taking a bunch of punches.

And I was kind of relieved to get a diagnosis finally. So, all right, now I can get back in the ring. I can start swinging.

I can start punching. And, you know, maybe I can I can fight as opposed to just feeling like a victim all the time. So I'm attacking my multiple myeloma, you know, the best way I knew how, you know, physically and and and through nutrition.

And that led me to 10, 11 days later, I'm sitting at a restaurant with my my son and my wife. And I am exhausted, Dr. Wilner. I can't even read the menu.

It's a P.F. Chang's menu, P.F. Chang's restaurant. So an extensive menu. But I'm sitting there.

I'm just I'm just exhausted. And I don't know why. And I'm thinking it kind of like dawned on me.

I think I knew it. Of course, I knew it subconsciously and all, but I kind of considered my my physical being to be my health. And, you know, it was that night that I recognized that, you know, my entire being, my whole being, my whole patient consisted of other things other than my physical being, you know, there's my mental being, my emotional being, my spiritual well-being as well.

You know, and as a musician, you know, I'm familiar with, you know, mixing boards, you know, being a guitar player, it's more and more guitar, less and less bass or something like that, you know, or more treble for a brighter sound or what have you. And so I was, you know, I recognized at that moment was able to articulate in my head said, you know, Ray, you're you're focused so much on your physical well-being that maybe you're not tending to your emotional and your mental well-being, your spiritual well-being. And when those levels are low, it can drag down what could be a strength.

But I also realized at the same time, you know, those sometimes those strengths can pull up those weaker levels. So you know, that was a it kind of dawned on me at that restaurant, Dr. Wilner, that, you know, I was more of a my being was more than just my physical being, that it consisted of other things. And so after that, I started examining, you know, I learned something about myself in this process.

What else could I learn about myself? What else can I learn about my treatment, my fight against cancer, my journey with cancer? If I had a growth mindset and approached approach this with a growth growth mindset, a beginner's attitude and, you know, an attitude of discovery.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (6:41 - 6:44)

Now, did you go through with the stem cell transplant?

[Ray Hartjen] (6:44 - 7:49)

I did. You know, it's funny when I spoke to a specialist about it, I said, I'm ready, a student like three months. He said, what's the hurry?

You know, it's like you might not need a stem cell transplant at all. You know, let's see if we can, you know, you know, address it with something else. It turned out I did need a stem cell transplant.

So I underwent that process in October, November of twenty nineteen. My second birthday is what they call the day they they reintroduced the stem cells to my body. That's November 5th.

So I recently celebrated my my sixth, second birthday and, you know, a complete reboot of my immune system that, you know, the stem cell, it was a tough process to go through. A lot of chemotherapy that, you know, really just wiped out my entire bone marrow to and as much cancer as it possibly could. And then, you know, the stem cells are reintroduced to my body to build more bone marrow and to, you know, create basically a new immune system had to go through pediatric vaccinations to recover.

Yeah.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (7:50 - 7:54)

And and you're still on some kind of maintenance treatment or behind you?

[Ray Hartjen] (7:55 - 8:45)

Yeah. No, I'm still on treatment. I'm on my third line of treatment as treatments, the efficacy wanes.

So I'm I go in for chemotherapy three days, three weeks out of four for one day. And with that, you know, one day I get two treatments. The other two days I just get one treatment and yeah, I'm trying to keep it as Bay.

You know, it's there's you know, with the multiple myeloma community, it's kind of a like these three year little marks. It's like, you know, you know, let's let's work on the treatment and stay on the treatment. Hopefully it's it's efficient and effective, you know, and then by the time you need a new treatment, there's a new advancement in the science.

And you know, the big hope right now is for CAR T cell therapies for for blood cancers like multiple myeloma lymphoma and others. And so, you know, maybe that's a treatment for me down the road.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (8:45 - 9:22)

I'm in Memphis, Tennessee, where I'm a professor of neurology at the University of Tennessee, but right around the block is St. Jude. So there's I know that they do many treatments along these lines for children. Well, so you've decided to kind of, if I can paraphrase, lean into it rather than like, OK, you know, this is what I got.

I'm going to learn everything I can about it and do what needs to be done, even though it's I may not even get rid of it. Right. Just got to deal with it.

[Ray Hartjen] (9:22 - 11:33)

Yeah. You know, I know there's choices that, you know, as patients we all make as humans, but, you know, everything that we come across is just forks in the road. There's decisions to be made and, you know, you know what you need to do.

And, you know, soon after my diagnosis, within a week or two, I went to my first ever group meeting. It was a patient support group, patients with a variety of cancers, you know, and those, you know, brave cancer fighters, you know, kind of taught me what it's like to be a cancer patient, you know, and when I needed help and I needed a helping hand, they were there to reach back and, you know, pull me forward to where I wanted to be, to where I needed to be. And, you know, it was at that moment when I decided, you know, I want to be like them.

They're role models for me, you know, when when I'm feeling good and I'm feeling strong, I want to be there for the community to be able to help anybody who might need it, whether it's a patient, a caregiver, ally or whatever. Let me help you get to where you need to be, because I know there's going to be times when I need your help, you know, and one thing that cancer has taught me, Dr. Wilner, is that, you know, I am stronger than I know, and I like to tell people you are stronger than you know, but together, collectively, we're even stronger still. Right.

So, you know, I want it to I want it to be an asset and a resource to the community. And, you know, I ended up writing a book about it, my journey, my fight. And it was because through social media, you know, I had to I had the privilege of participating in some videos and some some media coverage about my diagnosis.

And so people are reaching out to me on social media. And it was it's awesome, you know, you know, that people, you know, consider me to be a safe space that they can they can share with me. But, you know, I got to thinking, you know, when I had these conversations there and this engagement, it's a it's a one to one.

You know, how can I scale it to make it a one to many? You know, I thought, well, you know, I'm a writer. How about if I write a book about it?

You know, and it's been the honor of my life through the book. I've engaged with patients from around the world, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Iran, of all places throughout the UK, the United States. And it's, you know, it's, you know, you know, in addition to, you know, sharing my life with my wife of 31 years and raising two children, you know, engaging with these communities of patients and caregivers to honor of my life.

It's it's been super cool.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (11:33 - 12:39)

You know, on this program, I interviewed a woman who is a speech language pathologist, I think in Saudi Arabia, if I remember correctly, and she had had breast cancer and she wrote about that and she emphasized. First of all, how miserable it was that that you could not overstate how miserable it was getting chemotherapy and feeling tired, you know, this was a previously very productive, energetic person who now, you know, can barely get out of bed. And on the treatment days and she even modified her schedule so that she could continue to work, you know, by having, I think, her treatments on the weekend or having them on Friday.

So she'd have all the weekend, you know, to recover so she could actually keep going. But she emphasized that it was her friends, you know, her colleagues that that really helped her, you know, that gave her the support that she needed to get through it, that it was not not fun. And it was difficult, but that it was something that that could be done.

[Ray Hartjen] (12:40 - 14:11)

Yeah. And support groups are, I think, critical for patients, you know, whether it's a formal support group or you go to meet or if it's just, you know, friends, family, people in the network that come by and and, you know, let you feel as though you're in the fight with with them, that they're alongside you. And sometimes it's just sitting next to you on the couch watching a football game or something like that.

You know, it doesn't you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, something elaborate. And I think and I've been told from people who have been both patients and caregivers that sometimes the caregiver is the more difficult role. Right.

So, you know, not only do patients need support, but caregivers need support, too. You know, it's I, you know, liken it to, you know, when my wife was going through childbirth, you know, it was extraordinarily uncomfortable for her. But for me as well, I didn't know, you know, how much she had and, you know, where was she, you know, related to her limits.

And, you know, here it is, someone I love and care for. And she's, you know, feeling uncomfortable. That made me feel uncomfortable.

And I know it's weird, particularly for women who are in the audience or are listening or watching. And so what does this guy know about childbirth? But it's that, you know, that mental anguish, you know, that that I faced.

And it's something that caregivers face, you know, on a regular basis. So, you know, those people are important and support, you know, for caregivers, support for patients. And that's why, you know, it's very important for the ally community.

You might not be directly involved, but you can be. And and your support is just it means the world for for those two communities.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (14:12 - 15:23)

Yeah, I would second that. Caregivers are often overlooked. In fact, when I see patients in the hospital and most of the ones I see are pretty sick, there aren't always family members, but sometimes there are family members who come to see the patient and I'll thank them for coming because they have wives.

Right. They were supposed to be going to work or they were supposed to be, you know, fixing the house. And the next thing you know, the wife or the cousin or the mother is sick.

And there they are spending the whole day in the hospital, you know, for five minutes with the doctor. And they're terrified and, you know, they don't know what's going on. And it's hard for them, but they want to be there.

So then they're often overlooked because all the focus is on the patient. But I'll thank them because I think it's I think their presence is, if not curative, it's at least supportive to the patient that that they're just there. So I thank them for that.

And, you know, it's a sacrifice, I mean, of their own, whatever, whatever they were doing got totally derailed by this car accident. And now they're spending all day in the hospital. So I think I think caregivers do need more attention.

[Ray Hartjen] (15:24 - 17:06)

And it's uncomfortable for almost everybody. Right. You know, sort of like, you know, we almost have to have a first responder mindset.

Right. You know, not everybody can be a first responder. And it's it's difficult to you know, I I speak a lot of times with, you know, patient communities.

You know, they you know, I hear things such as, you know, after a diagnosis, you find out who your friends are, you know, and it pains me to kind of hear that. Right. You know, it's I know what happens.

There's a person in one of my support groups, her husband left her, you know, just he wasn't he wasn't he wasn't he did not want to go along for the ride. And, you know, things like that happen. But I do feel for the most part, you know, these friends that you do have, they're in your in your life for a reason.

You care about each other, you love and support one another. But so often when someone's facing with a critical health issue, a chronic illness or what have you, you just don't know what to say, you know, and you don't know what to say. So you just don't say anything today, you know, and then today leads into tomorrow.

Tomorrow leads in the next week. And actually, you know, there's a space that comes that's developed. And then it's like now I really don't know what to say because it's been a couple of months.

I'm ashamed of myself, you know, so I I try to encourage people start there. Just fess up, whether you're the patient, whether you're the friend, family member, just say, Dr. Wilner, I don't know what to say, but I love you. I care for you.

And I'm hoping that you and I can just get to this difficult conversation for another 30 seconds or so. And then I can figure out the best way I can to support you on this. You know, and so, you know, it's that support is just critical.

I just wanted to stress that those of you out there, you know, somebody, if you don't know what to say, start there. I don't know what to say and have those conversations. Don't let those relationships that are in your life for a reason to begin, you know, in the first place, don't let them, you know, get space in between them and erode and end up going away.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (17:08 - 17:46)

One topic I want to get to, and I addressed this in another episode with Renee Fleming, the opera star. She edited a book called Music and Mind. And the whole concept of the book was written by experts, you know, from all over the world is what do we know about how the brain processes music?

And what do we know about how music can help with healing? And since you're a musician, I wanted to ask you whether music played any role in your attitude or your recovery, or did you consciously use it in any way to sort of get you through this?

[Ray Hartjen] (17:47 - 19:34)

It's a great question, and I'm glad you asked it. You know, music is, you know, for me, it's more than just a coping strategy. I mean, as humans, we all need some sort of coping strategy, whether it's journaling, you know, walking on the beach at sunset or what have you done.

There's just so much noise in the world. You know, you need to cope. And, you know, picking up a guitar for me and, you know, writing music, playing music is a coping strategy for sure.

But it's also a storytelling capability as well, you know, and there are also goals associated, you know, with it. It's like I want to get back to performing, you know, with my partner Scott in our band and, you know, having that little kind of carrot dangle in front of you. Here I am, you know, losing weight.

I'm bald. I'm going through chemotherapy, stem cell treatment. But, you know, there's something ahead.

You know, we can get back to the wineries and the breweries and the clubs and, you know, playing something that we, you know, enjoy doing. So, you know, for me, it was multifaceted. You know, it's a kind of a music as a coping strategy.

Music is a carrot dangling in front of me for, you know, goals and objectives and things that I wanted to do. And also as a storytelling mechanism to, you know, to write music. I've, you know, it's still in the process of kind of, you know, cataloging my, you know, fight with multiple myeloma, my journey through, you know, a sequence of songs, something that I've delayed.

I've started. It's been starts and stops, but that I have, you know, kind of recommitted myself to for the last couple of months of, you know, you know, whether it's going to be an EP or LP or maybe nothing. Maybe, maybe it's just something for myself.

But, you know, telling the story of, you know, my trials and tribulations to be overly dramatic of dealing with cancer.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (19:35 - 20:03)

Now, you're a nonfiction writer primarily, and I see the books behind you is Indy 500, me, myself and my multiple myeloma we talked about. And now there's and there's one, if I recall, about the Pittsburgh Steelers and but I see another one outflanked, and that is not a nonfiction book. Too many negatives there.

It's a fiction book, right? So that's your first fiction. How did that happen?

[Ray Hartjen] (20:04 - 20:41)

You know, I, you know, it's just kind of a long story. So I hope I can tell it, you know, as I talked about approaching a multiple myeloma with a with a growth mindset. You know, once I came across that epiphany that, you know, my whole being was more than just my physical being, I was like, what else can I learn?

So, Dr. Willem, I went back to an exercise that I facilitated in my professional career for hundreds of people as part of a time management course. It's a timeline exercise and a timeline exercise that I'd like to really run through very quickly with you in the audience right now. And that is, you know, if you have something to write with and a piece of paper, that's great, but you don't need.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (20:42 - 20:43)

You can do it.

[Ray Hartjen] (20:43 - 25:26)

You can do it mentally as well out there in the audience. It's pretty simple. You just draw a horizontal line from left to right.

And then on the left hand side, a little vertical tick mark on the right hand side. At the end of it, that line make a little vertical tick mark. So you have a segment.

And then underneath the left hand tick mark, you write the letter B and that's going to, you know, represent your birth. And since you guys are all so much smarter than me, you already know what the right hand side is. Right hand side, put a little letter D that represents your death.

Right. There's your timeline. And then, you know, the introspective part of it, the powerful part of it is, you know, we all know intellectually that tomorrow is not promised and the rest of the day is not promised.

So where do you believe you are? Where do you think you are on your timeline on the planet? Right.

And for years, Dr. Wilner, I would just kind of haphazardly just put my mark right in the middle. So I was going to live forever. And if it wasn't forever, it's going to be at least be a hundred, you know.

And so, you know, I revisited this exercise after my diagnosis. And I thought, man, if I'm being intellectually honest with myself, my tick mark is not in the middle. It's a little further to the right than it was previously.

So what does that mean? You know, what does that mean to me? And so I looked at it and I thought, you know, not unlike a lot of human beings, I think that I've been guilty for far too long of taking time for granted.

I would always take next days for granted, next weeks, next months. I was one of those guys that, you know, one day, Dr. Wilner, I'm going to dot, dot, dot. Right.

And sometimes, depending on the conversation, you know, the topic that might be decades of time taken for granted. So, you know, I looked at that one more time and said, OK, you take time for granted. How does it manifest itself in your life?

Well, for me, it was readily apparent because I took time for granted. I took people and relationships for granted. You know, if I took tomorrow for granted and I'm thinking of, say, you, Dr. Wilner, it's like I know this my friend, Dr. Wilner. Oh, I'll just reach out to him tomorrow. I mean, he'll be here tomorrow. I'll be here tomorrow, you know, and then tomorrow turns in the next week and so forth.

Right. So immediately I wanted to snap my head around. This is like, what can I do to change this?

What is most important to me? What is of most value to me? And who are the people that are most valuable to me that I love the most?

And and being a musician, always looking for a pithy little saying to put on the back of a T-shirt, you know, band logo on the front, pithy saying on the back. Maybe we can sell a T-shirt for 20 bucks and make a little bit more money out of the gig. Right.

So a motto came up. If not now, when? And so then that to get to the point of your question, Dr. Wilner, a friend of mine, his name is Tom Olynyk. He's not a writer. He's a biotech executive, but he is a yinzer, a guy from the city of Pittsburgh. And, you know, for decades he had had this idea for a book, you know, in his mind, his thesis was that when the city of Pittsburgh had to undergo a very painful deindustrialization transformation, they needed their heroes and they got their heroes in a kind of unlikely form.

And that is a professional football team, which up to 1972 had been pretty mediocre. And that was being kind. They've been bad for the 39 years of their existence.

And so, you know, he looked at the city of Pittsburgh now, which is considered his new economy success story compared to its rust belt cousins like Detroit and Cleveland, Buffalo. It's like, you know, they're still struggling with, you know, coming up into the new economy. You know, in his mind, the Steelers saved Pittsburgh.

And he talked about it for decades with me personally for about 15 years. So I grabbed him by the shoulders one day using my new motto and said, Tom, if not now, when? You know, and and so how about I get started?

I'm a writer. I get started with the book. And if we should ever veer off your vision, we'll course correct.

18 months later, there was no course correction necessary. We had this great book that I'm super proud of. It's called Immaculate, How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh.

And, you know, that, you know, being a writer, you know, I wanted to write more books. I certainly wanted to write my patient memoir. I am passionate about motorsports and Indy 500 because of a book I read when I was a kid called the Indy 500, 30 Days in May.

And I wanted to write a book like that. And so I had the success with nonfiction books and just wanting to challenge myself as a storyteller. I was like, I wonder if I could write a fiction book.

I read a novel. And that is that my debut novel came out in the end of October 2025. It's called Outflanked.

It's a espionage thriller. I'm hoping that readers consider it to be a thriller because it says an espionage thriller as a subtitle. So I it would be embarrassing if it's there as a subtitle and it's and it's not very thrilling.

But the reviews so far have been positive, so positive that it's encouraged me to write a second novel. So I've started that and, you know, looking forward to continuing to work on it and get that out to readers as well.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (25:27 - 25:34)

Well, that's exciting. And your books are on your website and Amazon. What's your website again?

[Ray Hartjen] (25:34 - 26:46)

My website is my name. It's Ray Hartgen. R-A-Y-H-A-R-T-G-E-N dot com.

Also, you know, I do want to share with the listeners and viewers. If you ever want to reach out to me, particularly if you're a myeloma patient or if you are a patient caregiver ally, you can reach me anywhere. My email address is my name at gmail.com.

You can reach me through my website and on social media platforms. My name is my my my handle. So, you know, it's like I said, engaging patients from around the world.

Honor of my life. There's a man recently. He sent me a direct message on Instagram, a recently diagnosed myeloma patient who was scared, but he didn't feel comfortable talking about his fear with his wife or his children.

And but he felt comfortable coming to me. You know, such an honor, Dr. Wilner, that, you know, that, you know, someone would consider, you know, my space to be a safe space, you know, to share and then, you know, to get to a point where now he can talk with his his wife and his and his children about what his fears are. It's just, you know, if I can do that for anybody out there in the audience, please reach out to me.

I love hearing your stories. And like I said earlier, together, we are stronger than we are individually.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (26:46 - 26:53)

Ray, this has been fascinating. Just to wrap up, is there anything you'd like to add?

[Ray Hartjen] (26:54 - 28:02)

You know, I think I've said it, you know, a lot of times I'll appear on a podcast and people say, you know, what do you have, you know, any words of advice for for people? It's like, I don't know if I have words to advice other than the fact that, you know, I do want you to know that you are stronger than, you know, you know, when everyone's faced with challenges, obstacles, you know, and, you know, adversity, just know that, you know, until you're tested, you don't know how strong you are, but you are strong out there. And, you know, more importantly, together as a community, we're even stronger.

If you need help, please feel free to reach out to somebody. There's a lot of organizations out there. There's a lot of individuals.

If you need a little bit of help, don't shy away from being that person that asks for a little bit of help. There are people out there that can help you. At the same time, when when people reach out to you for help and you're capable, you know, pull them along alongside you as well.

We all get something, Dr. Wilner. You know that as well as everybody else. We all get something and none of us are getting out of this alive.

So but, you know, it takes a village, all those cliches, but just know, you know, together we are strong.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (28:03 - 28:07)

Ray Harchin, thanks for joining me on The Art of Medicine.

[Ray Hartjen] (28:07 - 28:12)

I appreciate it, Dr. Wilner. I love what you do with the show and I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you so much.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (28:12 - 30:42)

And now a final thanks to our sponsor, locumstory.com. Locumstory.com is a free, unbiased educational resource about locum tenens. It's not an agency.

Locumstory exists to answer your questions about the how-tos of locums on their website, podcasts, webinars, and videos. They even have a locums 101 crash course. At locumstory.com, you can discover if locum tenens make sense for you and your career goals. What makes locumstory.com unique is that it's a peer-to-peer platform with real physicians sharing their experiences and stories, both the good and bad, about working locum tenens. Hence the name, Locum Story. Locumstory.com is a self-service tool that you can explore at your own pace with no pressure or obligation. It's completely free. Thanks again to locumstory.com for sponsoring this episode of The Art of Medicine. I'm Dr. Andrew Wilner. See you next time. This program is hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Wilner, M.D., FACP, FAAN. Guests receive no financial compensation for their appearance on The Art of Medicine.

Andrew Wilner, M.D., is a professor of neurology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this program belong solely to the author. and his guests, and not necessarily to their employers, organizations, other group, or individual.

While this program intends to be informative, it is meant for entertainment purposes only. The Art of Medicine does not offer professional, financial, legal, or medical advice. Dr. Wilner and his guests assume no responsibility or liability for any damages, financial or otherwise, that arise in connection with consuming this program's content. Thanks for watching. For more episodes of The Art of Medicine, please follow on YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Please share with your friends and subscribe.

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