Yeah, I'm the only person in London not doing the marathon. I'm Russ Kane, and welcome to men's radio station where men really talk and play. But onto that a little bit later in the program. I gotta tell you, you know, the marathon's a great thing. I don't know how many people run. 35, 40,000, whatever it is, but they run right past where I live, okay? So I know that the roads are closed. I get that. Because I made the mistake. When they did a mini marathon, I was trying to get to the studio. So I set off, not realizing that some of the pavements are closed as well. My mood was not sunny, rather like the weather today. And everybody. I'm going one way to get to the station, right? And I've got probably 10, 15,000 people because it's a real vantage point where I am coming the other way. So there's just me, like an idiot going one way and 15,000 people all wondering, who the hell's this idiot with a grim face using his elbows to barge through? That was me. So if I got you in the ribs, I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not really, because, you know, the show must go on and all of that stuff packed show today. I'm really excited. No Phil, because basically he ran out of hair gel and therefore cannot broadcast. And frankly, it's a relief. But boy wonder producer James Blake is in the house doing the pose, as always, Always the pose of magnificence, the pose of victory and first guest. Well, this is a complicated. You know when you read someone's biog, right? You read the biog and you think, I'll just have a. So I went into our green room, which is now really pretty damn lush. It's better than you get at the BBC, I can assure you. You don't get anything. When I do the BBC shows, I bring my own pen. Multi billion pound organization. I have to bring my 10p. Tesco Biro into the BBC because you can't find a pen. You can't even find a notebook. I mean, I've never seen a shambles like it. Still, we're only paying for it, so who cares? So I went into the green room and I said. Because it said something about saxophone, this is a very, very heavyweight medical genius we're going to talk to in a second, right? Expert in his field, number one, which is what next to the carrots and the potatoes, that field. And so I went in with my usual sort of witty badinage to put him at his ease. And I said, oh, we'll have a bit of. A little bit of Coltrane and I'd love a bit of Czech Baker and everything. Well, blow me down. Only thought I was being serious. And from his rucksack, I thought, why is this elegant man dragging a rucksack like he's, you know, a Canadian student or something, Blocking my way on the Central Line, pulls out a saxophone. So my completely ridiculous joke then blew up in my face. And there it is. Dan. Dan the saxophone man. That is what you know. Dan Reinstein. Welcome to men's radio station. Thank you. That was it. Thank you. You're looking. I like any man who arrives with a monogram shirt. This is very, very cool. Dzr, which is either the Dockland Z, like railway, or it's your middle name, which is. What is the middle name with Zoltan. Are you serious? Seriously, Isoltan, your parents read those comics a little bit too much? No, no. My mother is Hungarian Sultan. And actually, when I moved to the UK, back to the UK in 2001, I thought of doing that American thing of your first name as an initial. Yeah. And then using your middle name. So, like, you know, R. Alexander Huckleback, the dark D. Zoltan Reinstein. That would be it. That would be it. But you decided against it. I did, but I might decide for it again because I was talking with some people last night about how my British passport. As you can tell, I'm British. Yes, yes. But my British passport. Were you born within the sound of Bow Bells? It sounds like it. Gosh. Well, it won't help me, you know, once October 31st comes, you know, to travel a lot in Europe. And so. But then I thought, wait a minute, my mother's Hungarian. I can get a Hungarian passport. Genius. So I'm going to be Zoltan after that. I would do that. Everybody I know is getting a different passport. If I could get a different passport, I would. Sadly, the independent state of idiocracy doesn't exist yet. The monogram thing is funny because. But it's cool. Well, when I first, I went to Thailand on holiday with the kids and came back and my son was about 5, my son Max, and we were sitting at dinner and he said, daddy, you're really famous. And I said, really? Why? Why is that, Maxi? And I thought, you know, because he's seen me on television. Because I did. I did Extreme Makeover for the eye surgery part. And, you know, I was on TV every few weeks, and I thought, yeah, yeah, he's seeing his daddy on television. Yeah, he's impressed. Why am I so famous, Maxi? He goes, because they make shirts with your initials on it. That is the standard for that. Was it. That was it. That is utter genius. Do you know, it's the thing. I got four kids, right? And it doesn't matter what you do when they're your kids, they just don't care. You could be the most. You could be the first guy to land on the moon, and you're still boring. Dad. It doesn't. They don't care. You know, my whole life, I might as well just work to the Halifax Building Society behind the counter for all they. Doesn't matter what you do. They're so unimpressed. I don't know why. No, they're always impressed. No, they're never impressed. No, you're never dad. No, no, no, dad is always. Trust me, they are never. My dad is still my dad. Yeah, he's 80. Coming up to 87. He's still my dad. Now, your. Your very melodious accent is. Well, I'm American, originally from. From. My father's from the Bronx, from New York, but. 170th and Grand Parkway or something like that. We went there once. Actually, we went there because I lecture at Columbia University once a year. And so our tradition is that we will go together for the weekend. I'll do my lecturing. And one of these trips, we rented a car and drove up to the Bronx. This was four or five years ago. And we went to his old neighborhood. And the high school is still there, but the house where he lived is, you know, it's gone. And of course, it's not the neighborhood you want to kind of walk around in anymore. But we went around. I thought you were going to say the opposite. And it's all been gentrified and it's fabulous. Well, you've got cafe latte, you know, not. Well, it will be coffee shops. You can crap. You can Bet that in 20 years time it will be. But the line is moving up, right? Yeah. So we go around the corner and the. He's like, oh, that's the synagogue where I had my bar mitzvah. But it, you know. And it said Iglesia Pentacostal above it. Right, right. And he was. He looked a bit kind of down about it. And I said, dad, it's okay. It's the same owner. It's just different management. When you said that, I thought it was like the new album from Julio Inglesias. When you described it now, we're going to hear you play bizarrely soon, but that's not really what you do. I mean, you do that. We'll come on to that in a bit. But really, you are like one of the country's leading eye surgeons. Is that what you would say? I would say that in the area that I'm specialized in, yes. I mean, it's hard to put it any other way, but then it's easy because that's all I do. No, it's not easy. It's not easy. Not easy. Look at James. All he does is produce. All he does is produce. You would not say he's one of the leading producers. I would. I would say he's not. The way that he sound. Checked that thing in two seconds. I would say he is. Really? Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Just because he got you to speak does not mean he was actually doing anything. He just said, speak, you speak. And he nods wisely. You think, hey, he's good, he's good, yeah. Play with a little button, Play with the buttons, look wise. Sounds good. Now tell us much more about what you do. And you brought a pal with, who's sitting there very quietly, but looking ridiculously handsome. So he's already got on my nerves. Test case patient. You're the test case patient. It's thanks to Justin, genius beside me, that I can see. So I'm just. He always takes with him somebody whose life he's saved or he's made saved. So I'm just. Seriously. No, James is. Is an incredible journalist. Serious journalist. Serious. We. We met a while ago based on some, you know, amazing stories that he'd written. And so we've become very good friends and. But he was walking around without glasses. Minus three, like, literally, I don't know what, blind. Like. Like. You serious? It's extraordinary that someone could actually function in society with that level of vision. But then again, you know, he's a journalist. He only has to see up close. I just make it up. So anyway, the thing. Could you not see well? So basically, up until 20, I could go just a fraction of the microphone. Up Until I was 20, my vision was fine. And then it started to get, you know, distance would be an issue. And I live in central London, so I don't drive, so it was never a huge issue. If you go to cinema or for meeting somebody in a restaurant, there are certain very embarrassing practical moments. But I just had got used. I didn't like the idea of having to go and get glasses and have them on my Face. I just. I just got used to life without it. And I guess because it was progressive, I just got used to it. It seemed normal to me. And it was only. Would glasses initially have solved the problem? Well, I'd have been able to see. And the professor is nodding. The answer's yes. Yes. I was just. I mean, I was just busy. I was just busy. Too busy to put on for a pair of glasses to go and get them. You know, you got to go and meet, you know, people and they test your eyes and strange stuff. Yeah, it takes about 20 minutes. Yeah. But, you know, it's things. Things are busy. So I'd left that off. And then I've known Dan many, many years. And how I was through a mutual friend, Keith Bishop. Never heard of him. Moving on. I don't know Keith Bishop. Love you, mate. Nobody knows Keith Bishop. Number one man. Number one lady. Number one lady. Love you. Love you. Bye, bye, bye. So, yes, and Dan said to me many times, you know, laser your eyes. And I was like, well, you know. And just the thought of it, I'm very, very, very squeamish and a complete coward. So those two things didn't work well together. And then one night we were out for dinner, and Dan and his business partner Craig said, oh, you're getting your eyes lasered. And I was like, well, I don't think so. No, no, you are. Just took out their diary and said, right, you're in this day. And I kind of tried to protest, and then they, you know, they made it happen. And actually I went in and I was about to have it done seconds away from surgery, and I tried to run away, and Dan came in, kind of eating an apple and said, are you going to run away or are you like, chomp, chomp? And I said, yeah, I'm running away, Dan. He goes, okay. He goes, well, just come in here via here and then lay me down and zap my eyes. So get out. Thanks to. He did like a sneaky. Almost. Almost against my free will. Wait a minute. This apple. The story gets more and more elaborate every time I hear, have you seen Snow White? I was about to say, do you ever see Snow White? And he said, Dan said, hey, try this apple. Just before you go. Actually, I got it. You could see. Now I've got this new technique where I just eat an apple and the patient can see. Impressive. Well, his surname is. But actually, it's almost as easy as that because you literally. We were talking, you. You lie down. He says, look at this bright light here. Look at this bright light here. And then you get up and he says, before you lie down, he says, look at that clock. And before I lay down, it was a blur. And then I lay down and two minutes later you get up and you can see the clock. You are joking me. Is it really that easy? It really is. There's no pain, there's no discomfort. He was taking selfies as he was doing it. I'm sure patience that was there to mock my trauma. Doing selfies and taking the hand out of me the whole way through it, which added great merriment and killed my fear. And then I got up and he said, open your eyes. And I carefully open my eyes and I could see. But you were not. You were not knocked out. No. You're wide awake. You can't be knocked out, can you? You don't need to be. Yeah, well, it's completely pain free. And, you know, the idea of. It would seem to be impossible to be awake, but. But you literally. And he's talking to you and it's like playing a computer game. It's kind of like you go into like a 3D computer game. He says, look to the left and there's all these, like bright lights. Look to the right. And then he goes, it's done. And you kind of think, oh, I don't think so. And then he moves to the next eye and both eyes done. And then he says, get up. And. But I thought, and this is my ignorance, Professor Dan, that I thought you honestly had to have your eyes, like, open, like. I think it's cockroach orange. Well, I thought that's what you had. No, that's. Seriously, that's what I thought you had to do. That's the problem is that everyone still thinks about that movie. It's really. Without going into the details of what you actually do, because that would be bad for you if I told you it's actually like this. You lie down, you look at a flashing light, you wait a few minutes is done. You barely feel anything. It's just extraordinary. It is extraordinary. It's. It's actually. It's so extraordinary that I made a technical film for a conference that we have once a year with 10,000 of my colleagues. It's a 15 minute history. Sorry, 10,000 people. 10,000 people who do this kind of surgery, Springsteen of eyes. And I made a 15 minute technical video on the technical achievements of mankind to make a three minute procedure that can cure 97% of all prescriptions in a few minutes. And it heals In a few hours. Basically, on the one hand, the story goes all the way back to Einstein. Not Reinstein. Einstein even. I didn't. Who's. Whose theories. Who had. Whose theory predicted that lasers could be made, and they weren't made till 50 years later? But he. He had the idea of how that could happen. And on the other hand, you have a Spaniard who was living in Colombia in the 19, late 1940s, who experimented first on rabbits, but worked out a way of reshaping the cornea with a lathe. Okay. It's a mechanical process. But now the same process was then taken over by laser. Sorry, I'm hearing the word lathe and eyes. Exactly. Unbelievable. So he was doing a surgery where he would slice off the front two thirds of the cornea and this disc would be frozen in liquid nitrogen, then put on a watchmaker's lathe, lathed to a different shape, then unfrozen, thawed, and sewn back on the cornea. And he could correct a minus 20 and get it within plus or minus 4 diopters. Minus 20 is like Coke bottle bottom stuff. When the laser came around through the other side of history, it was possible to make the surgery so accurate that we can now lay within a quarter of a diopter. Okay, so now we can take someone who's -0.75, who barely needs glasses, and nail it on zero. Or we can take a, you know, very blind person like Justin and nail it on zero. So it's the con. It's the confluence of physicists and biologists and doctors and surgeons, and it led to this really. It's almost. I would say it's almost as miraculous as landing a man on the moon. The complexity of what we do in three minutes. The reason I had Clockwork Orange at top of mind is because this week I went to the Design Museum and I went to the press launch of the Stanley Kubrick exhibition, which is, by the way, depending on when you're listening to this and you're listening around the world, so you may not be listening in London is great. It's a terrific exhibition. And you were saying that Einstein predicted the way that lasers could operate. And when you see the drawings and you see the stuff that was in 2001. I'm digressing for a second. Which came out in 68, I think. 68, 69, something like that. Everything we take for granted now was there. Unbelievable. I watched that movie with my boys two months ago on Blu Ray at home. Well, I'll tell you, and I Was shocked at how not aged it seemed. You look at Star Trek from the 60s, it looks, you know, hokey. That's the charm. But. Yeah, now, that's the charm. But this film is timeless. You look at Star wars, it looks dated, right? Star wars from the 80s. Yeah. But this is. And it was from before that. Oh, yes, absolutely. And Kubrick had no cgi, so I could talk about this for hours. Now, here's a little thing that'll stun you if you enjoyed that film as a little boy. I was on the set of 2001. Really? Oh, yeah. It's all my dad's timber. My dad was a timber importer, so he supplied the studios and he was just there for business. But I was there because I was absolutely in love with the movie industry. Who the hell wouldn't, you know? And it was very formative for me, that movie, actually, because I saw it when I was a. I don't know, I must have been 12 or 13 or something. And it was really. It was a tough thing for a little kid to watch. It was the only film my dad and I ever discussed, ever. But I walked all over the set. He just wanted to go home. He'd done the deal, you know, the timber was sold and all the rest of it. And I was just walking around. Every button was labeled correctly. So on the spaceship and on the, you know, the centrifuge thing, every single button was. Had a proper label, as if you never saw it. But such was his attention to detail, much like men's radio station. Everything, actually, we have nothing labeled. We don't even know we've got a cup of tea. We're happy. So much like laser eye surgery, we gotta label everything. Yeah. Left eye, right eye. That's right, that's right. Now I've got to dig deeper into this. Are you Saying to me, Mr. Handsome fellow over there with your model hair, there were no drops in your eyes? Yeah. I want to hear from the patient in very simple terms. Like, obviously, they don't just take you off the street and. And Zapiola. It's not too far off that. But you get taken in, have a nice cup of coffee, they give you a bit of chocolate. You know, you're made to feel very welcome. Chocolate is medicinal. Yeah, Medicinal chocolate. These are my house. And you're taken downstairs. And, yes, they put some drops in your eyes. So essentially, the only thing that's different is the numbing of your eyes. But you don't feel. You know, you feel drops going in. So that's the. It's not a discomfort. That's the only feeling you have. Until. Until they do it. And you go into the waiting room and then a man comes in eating an apple and tells you, you can't leave, you're going to be zapped. And you lie down. This is so exaggerated. But anyway, that's exactly what happened. And I'm going with him. I could get into serious trouble if your story was true. The fact is, even if his story wasn't true, it's a better story than yours. I like his story. Dan loves me so much that he knew that I was. It was the right thing, that I'd regret it if I didn't. And he was, of course, completely right, because I literally was about to leave. I'm ultra, ultra squeamish. When I was a kid, I had an eye accident. And so it was clicked with my eyes. I'm ultra squeamish. So if I can get through, anyone can. So I just thought, no, I'm just gonna walk away, because walking away is always easy to do. And I'm so grateful I didn't because it changes your life. And there's nothing else you can do in your life with your senses. You only have a few senses, and there's nothing else that exists in medicine or that can change a sense. Imagine if you can, in three minutes, improve your hearing by 1,000%. That would be good. Nothing else. Exactly. Or anything. Or your strength by that percent. There's no other physical thing that you will ever do that exists that is comparable to this. That's what kind of blows me away. So you literally, you walk in there as a disabled, essentially human being, and you walk away with 20, 20 superhuman vision. That is the same as a fighter pilot or the best in the world. And that can be whether you're really blind or really, really blind. There's. Dan covers such. Not all surgeons could do that, but Dan covers a miraculous range of the thing that worries that. It's always been in the back of my mind. And it's quite a genuine, genuine thing because I wear glasses to read. I don't need them for anything else. Right. No, I don't need them for anything else. But for reading, it's hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. And as a writer, which is primarily what I do, that is complete pain in the. Pain in the rear end. So I've got glasses on every single surface. All over the house, obviously. And in the car, every place, every pocket. With me, you find hand sanitizer, because that's how I roll and glasses. Those are the two things. Without my reading glasses, I am screwed. And I'm always thinking, well, you know, I could do this. I wouldn't mind doing this. I won't mind doing this because it's such a pain in the ass trying to find. And then what happens afterwards? This is my technical questions. The technicals I get. Can your eyes then degenerate from that procedure and you can only have it once, or can it be redone? Or how does it work? Well, look, obviously the eye is a living thing. So as Mae west said when she was in her 70s, My body is exactly the way it was 40 years ago, just lower. And so the body is biological system. So, yes, we correct the vision and then perhaps five, 10, 15 years later, it's not quite as sharp anymore. Yes, it can be adjusted. And in fact, we can adjust it pretty much as many times as required until, you know, you can keep people out of glasses for the whole of their lives, basically, because there's nothing about the process that means you're going to have to have treatment or makes it. Or risks your vision or makes it worse, if that's what you do. In my mind, I'm thinking, what happens, happens if it. I'm not saying you. But, you know, like you with eyes. I'm incredibly squeamish with eyes. Most other things I can deal with, but that is just like. Well, I think that's one of the key things because, you know, you go to somebody like dan who's done 60,000 operations. Don't exaggerate. 28,000. 28,000, yes. And, you know, that's 20. Essentially, you know, 28,000. I'm laughing. You think because the line is like, are you getting it right yet? I mean, exactly, you know, 20,500. I was being modest. It's 28,500. So, you know, you take that. You take that. James, don't even think about. He's a rank amateur. And out of all those people, you know, they can all see. And I'm sure all of them, you know, would swear to us that, well, we've all gone in. But you have such an incredible. You know, if you look at anything that you do in your life, statistically, it's such a safe bet. And I'm. I say the most squeamish person. And I analyzed that. I'm a journalist. I went through that meticulously. And it's as safe a procedure as you can have. Obviously, your eyes are involved, but, you know, you can't go Blind from it. And if there are complications, it's from infection, from things that they can deal with. Now if you obviously have this done in a, in a shoddy place or in somewhere that's less professional as the London Vision Clinic, you know, there's different risks depending where you go, but it's so minimal and the benefits are so huge. For me personally, it was a complete no brainer. You see, the interesting thing which I want to come back to you about is this. The whole ethos of men's radio station and our sister station, women's radio station, and the reason that Howard James and I set it up was about well being and everything that comes under that overarching umbrella of well being. And in this case it's for men. But obviously the same applies in this particular instance for women as well. Has your life radically improved since the procedure? 100%. And in ways that I couldn't have anticipated. And my deep regret is that I didn't do this 10 years before. I did in every respect, sometimes in quite a personal way as well, because there's interactions with people that I often have missed in the past. You know, if you're sometimes little eye exchanges are done outside of a field of vision that I didn't know was relevant. Almost before, you know, I had a range of vision, maybe about seven foot or so. Know the, in close detail. And often if you're in a restaurant or certain social settings, a girl or somebody, you know, you know, whoever, whether it be romantic or otherwise, exchanges subtle differences. And I look back and see things that I probably missed. So that's on a personal level and obviously on a practical level, you know, I play football every week, so that's been changed. Going to the cinema, I don't have to sit in the front row anymore. The first five rows, the front row, I can sit there. My God. Exactly. And that trying to drag your, you know, your partner to the front row of a cinema with time is like. You have to buy a lot of popcorn to get over that one. And walking down the street, there's a safety aspect just crossing the road, particularly when you live in London. There's a whole host of factors. And the fact also that it's just such an instant thing. I walked into that clinic as essentially a disabled person. People think of your eyes. You don't think of it as a disability. It's really a disability if you had a lame arm. No, I do because my father was legally blind. Wow. And so I lived with that for many, many, many years. And I watched his world get narrower and narrower and narrower. It was absolutely horrendous. It would have been before books on tape. It was before. Was it macular degeneration? No, it's now that I. You will know. No, no, no, no. You will know. It was the most extreme tunnel vision. So it was as if he. Retinitis pigmentosa. Yeah, that was it. It was as if he was looking if, you know, you go to a poster shop or you go somewhere and they've got a long, long cardboard tube around which say, wrapping paper is. I mean, long thing, you know, like gift paper or something. That's what somebody. I went to one of the doctors. What's my dad dealing with? And they said, look through this cardboard tube. And I said, well, I cannot see anything. He said, that's how your father's living his life. It was horrendous. It was horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. So eyes, for me is very, very, very important indeed. This has been an absolutely riveting stuff. We've got a first coming up for men's radio station, A musical enchantment. I say that because I'm looking at a solid gold saxophone, so it's got to be enchanting or else I'll be out the building. Meanwhile, it is time to. To pay the rent. You're listening to Russ Kane on radio station. Women really talk. Boom. Love it. I'm Russ Kane. This is men's radio station. Rocking the decks as always. The boy wonder, producer James Blake. James's mom looking after the green room. You think I'm making it up? No, no, no. I'm really not. What I love about James's mom is she dresses up like she's going to a cocktail party every Sunday. Amazing. I never seen anybody. I'm used to the BBC where they look like they've just, you know, been hiking or something. But not James's mum, who arrives in a black cocktail dress and heels. You don't get that at the BBC. You don't get anything at the BBC, including a smile. Right. My special guests are Dan Reinstein, who is a top eye surgeon. That's what I'm going to call him. And he's brought with him, I think, basically for decorative purposes. Justin Stoneman, who is one of his. One of the patients that he operated on with great success. Right now, we were talking before the break, Dr. Dan, about being squeamish. And I asked through ignorance, but interest as well, that if it could go wrong, but also, can it be redone? Et Cetera, et cetera. And I. And so in the break we were chatting about that and you're saying there's like something like 19 myths about eye surgery. And I think it's really important because a lot of people listening and remember we've got listeners all over the world. I know there's a lot of people in the States listen to the show and Australia and France, bizarrely, Je ne saur. Bonjour, Bonjour partout. David Mindel in the Sut de France. Yes. With the laser. So, yeah, and they're probably thinking, yeah, I'm thinking about eye surgery. But it really scares the crap out of me. So how would you reassure them? Well, I started forming this list because it was apparent that the information that's out there in the general public about laser eye surgery is based on the James Bond movie where he's lying there with the laser and, you know, like, so if you move your head, you know your ear will get cut off or something. Yeah. Anyway, I started this list and I've got my top. Well, I've got the top 17 here written down. So I'll just, I'll rattle them out. It was Goldfinger. Was it? So it's still very new and the field is developing, so it's worth waiting. It doesn't work very well. You still need glasses after the procedure. It can't correct long sightedness, it can't correct astigmatism, it can't correct the need for reading glasses. As you get older, which is the presbyopia, you could end up blind. It hurts. If you blink or move during the procedure, it can go wrong. If something goes wrong, there's nothing that could be done. It doesn't last very long. It needs redoing. We don't know about the long term safety. The prescription has to be stable before you have it done. If you get a cataract later in life, you can't have that done anymore. Contact lenses are safer than laser eye surgery. Contact lenses are cheaper than laser eye surgery. Discounted laser eye surgery is the same as more expensive laser eye surgery. Some clinics offer a variety of treatment options on the premise that several options are available for correcting vision. That's a myth, right? There's only one option for every eye. There's only one way to fix the eyes, right? There's only one option for each eye which is the best option for that eye. And there are clinics that say, well, if you want quite good vision, it cost you this. And if you want slightly better vision, it's all over the Internet. It's sort of like. Like an upsell. No, no, they're on their website. It's an upsell, you know, come in for 3.99 and then we'll upsell you with night vision. It's unbelievable. So they dive, slice, they dice and slice it, no pun intended, Saying, hey, you can't afford the whole thing. But how about. Yeah, that's exactly how. If you can only afford that much, we'll give you this much. It's crazy. It's crazy. Anyway, but that's the list. I mean, here, I can, I can hand it to you. I trust you. You're a doctor. No, no, but if you want. What I'm saying is. So all that list, it's myth. Every single one of those things. I could speak for half an hour about why it's wrong. If you've ever had eye surgery and you want to talk about it. So that was my glasses spot the irony. 0203-290-441. That's 0203. Have you got the jingle? Go on. Just, just to amuse me. Have you got it? Of course I want the jingle. I mean, I guess if you see the way that silky smooth. You mean it's still there? No, I mean I guess you have a minute. David Mint. We'll have you for lunch. 0203290. Double four, double one. 0203-290-4411. I do that just to annoy Phil Dave, but he's not here, so it's just annoying myself really. Yeah, do call because I'd be really fascinated to know if you've had eye surgery and it was great or you had eye surgery and for you it didn't work. And for whatever reason it didn't work and what your views on that. So all of those things are myths. Why are the myths? In a fairly sophisticated age in which we live, although I think we're heading back to barbaric times, why have they been allowed to stay, you know, still circulating and not been laid to rest? You know, I think it's multifactorial as to how that, how it's ended up. But part of the reason is that a lot of the legacy history from laser eye surgery from the 1990s persists. So things like you can only correct short sighted, you could correct long sightedness or you can't correct astigmatism. We've been correcting astigmatism since 1993, but there were lasers in the 90s that could only do sphere and not astigmatism. So there are things that just get locked in and then unfortunately, perhaps optometrists, high street opticians who see patients, most of the patients who need glasses see them. Right. They're not up to date and so they might just continuously, you know, it's a self propagating myth. It's a self propagating myth. For example, the reading vision thing is the biggest shame, I think, because about 15 years ago when I moved back to the UK, part of the reason was so that I could be outside of the US FDA regulatory shackles and develop things at a much higher rate speed with Carl Zeiss. So Dan actually designs the lasers that he's upping you with, which is an extraordinary thing as well. So Carl Zeiss, I've been their lead consultant since 2001 and he does the lasers. Yeah. And so I had this concept which came in because of a series of coincidences. And I noticed that I could use the laser to change the optics of the eye so that I could increase the depth of field of the eye. So rather than light being focused at a point, it's focused in a zone. Dan has more patents than Dyson. Anyway, we developed this into what we called laser blended vision. And it was about 2004 and I treated about a thousand patients and gave the data to Zeiss and presented all this to them and showed them the science and showed them the equations, expecting them to say, thank you very much, Sonny, that's very good. We're the optics company, we'll just make it better. And to my surprise, they said, that's really good, we'll be programming that into the laser. So in 2009, they literally, literally put the equations straight into the laser, no changes. And so they made a product called Presbyond, which is a software, it's a software upgrade on the laser. It's the same laser, it just changes what it does. So we at the London Vision Clinic have now treated, well, certainly over 6,000 patients since 2004 for Reading Vision. Okay. And we've done it using Lasik, which is the laser eye surgery procedure that has been done now in 55 million eyes around the world. And it's very accurate, it's very safe, and all of that with some modifications. Right. In the meantime, the commonly used procedure for reading glasses, which is to replace the lens that's inside the eye with a plastic lens. So you take out the natural lens, which is not a cataract yet, but you use the same Operation that you would do for cataract surgery in a younger person with a clear lens, extract that clear lens, it's called clear lens extraction actually. And then put in a plastic lens into the eye that's like a bifocal or a trifocal so that you could see at different distances that surgery works and there are many, many happy patients out there who've had that. But that really is quite a scary one, I think, isn't it? Well, the point is that it does work, but it's higher risk than staying outside of the eye. And I mean my 10 year old knows would be able to tell you that, right. Stay outside of the eye is less risk than going inside of the eye. So when I, you know, my, my view of eye surgery is you've got to do, you've got to think of safety first. And when it comes to safety first, then the answer is you shouldn't be going inside the eye if you can stay outside of the eye and do the same thing. So my frustration is that it is still very, very much believed that, that you have to replace the lens inside the eye. And it's advertised on television, it's called permanent lens replacement. It's all, you know, they have the nice pictures of people running through the beach and whatever. Everything great happens when you run in slow motion on the beach. I've never done that in my life. Reading in slow motion. I think, well, I do, I think in simultaneous. So I can get that it's where you, I was gonna say operate from, no pun intended. Where is all this taking place? So we, I established with my friend and partner Craig Englefree, we established the London Vision Clinic on Harley street in 2002. And so we're, you know, we've been very fortunate. Worked hard of course, but been very fortunate. We're the harder you, you know what they say, and I always believe it, the harder you work, the less luckier you get. Truth and people want to get. Because we're a commercial radio station, I've always been in commercial radio. How do people get hold of you? We've got plenty of time, but I like to get within so you're not rushed. The easiest way is to, if you search London Vision Clinic or you know, londonvisionclinic.com is our website. That's the easiest way you can find all the information. I mean the point is that we load our website with data and facts and we don't hide the scary stuff. Nice big print. I think you have to change that yourself. The point Is that, you know, I believe when I was a casualty officer at St. Mary's Hospital as a junior doctor, he's one of the icons of my medical education, who was our consultant there. He used to say to us, knowledge dispels fear. And that has been my motto, if you like, for laser eye surgery. Because the more you know about it, actually, the more calm you'll be about it, because the more you'll realize that this thing is really safe. I mean, one of the things that surprises almost everybody when we tell them that, you know, obviously daily disposable contact lenses are the safest ones because. Because they're the ones that you just throw out at the end of the day, you don't have to sterilize them yourself. If you wear daily disposable contact lenses every day for one year, you have now accumulated the risk of laser eye surgery in terms of producing a little bit of damage to your vision. Now, my daughter has to do that. That's what she's always. If you wear monthlies, I think she wears, or two weeklies, the ones that you have to clean yourself now, you've actually, you're going to accumulate that risk before a year has gone by. So this is actually the truth of the balance between risk and benefit. If you want to know how safe it is. Dan has lasered his own eyes. How cool is that? That's how much of a genius Dan is. Now we'll give the d the BBC one show. Cameras came in and filmed all this extra. One of the most extraordinary things I've ever witnessed. So, Dan, I can't even take a selfie without screwing it up. That's pretty good. You know, when you think of what, I can barely put a band aid on myself, never mind laser my own eyes. So Dan will explain exactly how that works. But it was an extraordinary thing to witness that is weird and hilarious for, like, millions of time. Millions of viewers on BBC one primetime. Dan can explain. Well, the truth of the matter is that I was for several years, I knew I would eventually need it. Age would catch up with me. And so I was planning and doing the calculations and working out the optics of how I could put a prism, for example, in front of my left eye, which would then go to a monitor that would be flipped and inverted so that when I'm looking at it with my left eye, I can do the surgery on my right eye. You know how, like, women will pluck their eyebrows or something just like that, only in the car, and then yell at you can't you drive more slowly. So I, So I was that just me. I, I, I, I went to this. I went to my associate Glenn Karp, who's been with me for, you know, over 10 years. And he came to me as a fellow to train, and he was so brilliant, we forced him to stay. So I said to Glenn, I said, look, I think I've got a way that I could actually do that. Of course, I'll need you there, you know, in case I need to, you know, in case something goes, something, you know, I need you to kind of, like, take over. He's like, dan, I am not gonna be a part of that. That is. I'm like, glenn, it's totally doable. He's like, dan, you already have enough enemies. Just let me do it. Okay, you got me there. You got me there. Dan. Dan, have you ever seen the Jeff Goldblum film the Fly? Yes. Because I don't know why this sounds like what could go wrong. I'm gonna transport myself across the. I've got this feeling. You and Jeff Goldblum sort of separated at birth. And he's a jazz musician. James, I'm gonna just mention one thing to you, all right? This genius on my right. Genius, right, has just lasered. And he went through the whole thing about how he could laser his own eye using prisms and monitor. If I hear you bitching ever about fiddling with a couple of mobs on a desk, right, Just put it in perspective, fella. Or the cables. I'm always moaning about the cables. You're always moaning about. It's like a wire. How tricky can it be? It goes in one thing and comes out the other thing. That's kind of how it works, right? This is. This is an amazing stuff. Now, without putting you on the spot now. So I want to hear this without putting you on the spot. What you said to me was just now, one of the myths. It's much cheaper to do daily disposable. Oh, yeah, things like that. Right, so. Well, simple math. It's simple maths. But roughly speaking, I believe after four or five years of using daily disposables, you've actually covered the cost of laser eye surgery probably easily, I reckon. Daily contact lenses are so expensive. Oh, my God. It's like 300 for, like, a month. What? Yeah, something like that. Are you serious? Like true eye250 or something like that? Is it that much like a full for, like, left and right? Well, then it's way before that. The thing, I would say the thing about you know, the thing about cost benefit is that's the cost comparison right there. But if you want to do the benefit comparison, it's another planet, right? Because the difference here is that you are at a nightclub like Justin here spends his Life in at 3:30 in the morning on a Saturday night. And your eyes don't feel uncomfortable with the dryness from all the drinking and the dehydration. And you wake up on Monday morning, maybe a bit of a headache, but you can see immediately as you open your eyes, you don't have to wait and fumble for your glasses, which you forgot where you put them. Basically every second that you are awake, you are now using that benefit. So the benefit. Sorry. Have you ever tried to take contact lenses out when you're drunk? You probably do more damage than you do good. Kind of. Well, that's one of the ways that people can damage their eyes with contact lenses is a piece of dust gets under it for some reason and then removing the contact lens scratches the surface further and then you get an infection and then blah, blah, blah, and then you have a serious eye. Here's my latest eye story. I have twins. They're going to be 21 in June and they're fanatical about all the Marvel universe. So they went off as soon as they could the IMAX in Waterloo to see the very first screening of Avengers Ensemble or Avengers Endgame. It's end game, isn't it? Right? And so one twin turns, the other goes, you're crying. I'm not crying. I'm not crying. To be ridiculous. I'm not crying because he's like 6 foot 3, he lives in the gym. I'm not crying, I'm not going. I said, what happened to. What happened to your eyes? He said, well, I forgot to blink. I said, what? He said, I had put one on my glasses, which I never wear glasses, but I put my glasses on, then I had the 3D glasses on. This film is three hours long, right. I forgot to blink my eyes was so. Because I was. So I said, how can you forget to blink? He said, I did. I do it all the time. Yeah, when you're working at a. Well, the statistics on that, the medical statistics on that are that when you're just talking to someone, you blink about 25 to 30 times a minute. When you're working on a computer, you're blinking about five times a minute. So your blink rate goes down when you're reading or looking at a screen. And so that's. That's computer vision syndrome. Right. People get red eyes, sore eyes, itchy eyes when they've been working on the computer. I spent hours. It's not permanent damage. Well, unless you do it over 10 years. But essentially it's, it's, it's a. It's the eye getting dry. Yeah. But one of the things that occurred to me also about contact lenses, which in terms of people trying to save money, for example, in contact, they'll order them over the Internet and they'll bypass the examination by their optometrist, their optician. And that is even more dangerous because contact lenses are foreign material, silicone, whatever they're made of, and they're on the most sensitive part of your body. And so it's a shame, actually. It's a shame that it's become possible to order contact lenses without seeing a medical professional to check your eyes every six months. I've never thought of that. And there's lots of reasons you can't wear contact lenses. Right. Like certain shapes can't. Certain conditions and stuff like that. Well, although even more so, it's the fit of the contact lens that might not be right. And unless an optician, optometrist is looking you in a microscope, in a slit lamp and checking this and making sure that things are still okay every six months, you are at risk of damaging your eyes with contact lenses. The other side of this, which has been around a lot longer, is reading glasses. And the fact that you can walk into a supermarket and buy a pair of readers, you're looking at them is. Well, that's also somewhat dangerous because what's supposed to happen. And you know, it's coincidentally wonderful that you start to need reading glasses in your 40s. In general, that is around when you need to have your first proper eye exam by an eye care professional to exclude diseases like glaucoma, which can blind you without you realizing it. I actually do have proper eye tests. I insist. And I have it every year. Right. Really good. Now, nothing wrong with my eyesight, because even I have noticed that on the studio desk is what we don't often see. We normally see bits of water or coffee or stuff. A saxophone, which might seem at odds with our rather erudite conversation. And yet this man, apart from being one of the top eye surgeons on the planet, is also a sax player. And apart from the drums, which I play, the sax is my favourite instrument. I absolutely love it. And the bass, I don't play that. But tell us about your sax. Don't. You are so smutty, you child. Your Mother's in the next room. Grow up. Oh, just grow up. This saxophone and I don't, I don't have an endorsement from Yannigasawa, but I, I collect saxophones. I don't own any stock, any bonds, I don't have any investments. The. Well, apart from my house and my clinic and my children. Yeah, but what. I keep the receipt for your children. What I have invested in is saxophones and I, I'm very interested in vintage saxophones. I have a lot of them. But this is a brand new saxophone. It's one of the only new saxophones that I have and I have it because it's a curved soprano saxophone. Oh, you said that James, didn't you? Move on. Sopranos in the 30s were straight. They used to be curved. Then they were straightened out. They were straightened out because they were very out of tune when you get the smaller saxophone. It was very hard to play them in tune, to keep them in tune. In the 80s, this Japanese company started making curved sopranos again and they found a way of making them much more in tune. And I bought one in 87, played it for 20 years. And then a few years ago I thought, well, let's see what they've done so far. And they've, they of course had made a lot of technical improvements. And I went to the website and I thought, well, I'm old enough now to afford the top of the line saxophone. And I just. And I gotta say, it looks fantastic. If Yannigasawa ever hear me say this from this, on this radio station, you have made the most incredible curved soprano on the planet. This thing is pink, gold plated. It's a weird, beautiful. It's a weird thing because we were chatting before the show about a mutual friend, one of my best pals, Rachel Arto. Rachel Arto and the Giants, which is a fabulous band. And Ray, of course, he plays very old. Yeah, quite the opposite of this, very old. And he says, look at this, you know your eye. And he does it part of the app, but he does it in conversation. You, your iPhone or whatever phone can be, you know, not work. And it's brand new and I'm playing a sax that's near like 80, 90 years old. Well, it sounds sensational. I'll bet you his horn is from about the 40s, the 40s and the 50s. And those are the ones that I collect actually. My tenor is from 1956. That's what he played. My main tennis. You're a little bit older than me. Yeah, mate, this sandwich on the table's old and new. Championship. Right. What are you gonna play? Well, I'm excited. This is great. I love this. Well, you know, after 50 years on this planet, I decided I was old enough to. I really ought to make my first record. And so I called upon. I called some favors in, as one says, and I had operated on a number of really, really, really, really famous jazz musicians, which I call the most famous people that no one's heard of. Yep. And. And one of them, amazed. I was shocked when I walked into the studio and I mentioned this to you is Mo Pleasure. Yep. And I did Mo Morris Pleasure's eyes in about 1980. 98. Sorry, 98. In Vancouver, when I was living there. He was with Earth, Wind and Fire at the time. He was their musical director at the time. Yes, yes, yes. And we've been friends ever since. And of course, 20 years later, what happens is that the reading vision starts to go. So I fixed his distance, but his reading vision started to go. And so I said, that's fine. You're spending a lot of time in the UK anyway. Sorry, that. Is that Morris, he's listening in. What? You can't see Morris. What happened? He's playing Candy Crush. Really? We're in a meeting now. Anyhow, he. We put him on the laser again and fixed his reading vision, and he wrote this tune which we're going to play now called now that I found you. And I've. We've put this on my record. And so this is. Not only have I heard of Mo Pleasure, I've been on the same stage as Mo Pleasure. Oh, yeah. All right. I have. Same drums. No, no, I didn't play. I was. I was doing something. It was a big show and I was doing something. It doesn't matter. Right? But he was. He was a great guy. Sound for sight, no, it was another thing. But it was great. All right, here we go. This is the first one of the top eye surgeons in the world playing the saxophone. Should I start the track when ready? Yes. There. Sa. Sa. Sam. It. Wow. What the hell? Oh, that was fantastic. Dan Rice. I'm blown away. Dan Reisley, one of the top ophthalmic surgeons in the world. And I had no idea. I was kidding when I walked into the room. That was sensational. Absolutely sensational. We can take an ad break, and then I need something even more from you. That was just terrific. And a first for men's radio station where not only where men really talk, but where men really play saxophone. You're listening. You're listening to. I gotta tell you, both James Blake, boy producer, and myself, blown away from that. I had. I had. No, it's like when somebody does something brilliantly in one area of their life, like, what do you do? I'm a top eye surgeon. Okay, that's enough. That would be sufficient for anybody. No, what else do you do? Oh, I write music. Okay, what else do you do? Oh, I play the sax a bit. And then you play that. And like, James and I are sitting there grinning like two idiots because it was fantastic. Facebook going potty over it, by the way. So bless you. Bless you for that. I mean, I do say, I like to say sometimes that eye surgery is a really great hobby. It takes my mind off. It takes my mind off, you know, the. So when you were playing and you were playing with any sheet music, I say that carefully. Any sheet music in front of you, etc, etc, and you got totally into the zone. And my favorite quote for the way that I write novels and stuff, it comes from Ginger Baker, of all people. Very, very ferocious, angry drummer from a documentary in the 60s when they said, oh, it was quite posh, you know. Mr. Baker, tell me, how do you play the drums? Do you practice? Blah, blah, blah. And he goes, you know, you don't play the drums. The drums play you. And when I. When I able to go into, like, a studio just by myself and I put my headset on and I just play with anybody, I just play the drums. It makes me feel. And you think, I don't know how I did that. And same with writing. You, the expression on your face was like you weren't thinking, oh, what? What do I play? You were in it. You just. You become one with the music. I thought, yeah, well, that's. Say I played the melody that Morris wrote, and then I embellished it a little bit. But then there's the solo section, right, which is the open section. And then, yeah, that's the part where you just. You got to let your. You have to actually, you have to force your conscious out of the way totally. Because otherwise the critic is there going, no, no, you already did that one. And you just have to push that out of the way and just listen and get into the sound that you're hearing and translate it immediately onto your fingers. You have to close your eyes, don't you? Because if you have your eyes open, strangely, I always close my eyes when I play. People mention that you close your eyes when you're doing eye surgery. Okay, try that, actually. Very good. Oh, God, very good. Right. I always like to ask our guests, and I'm going to ask you as well, Justin, to start thinking about it. Your top three tips. And it can be on anything as wide as you like. But remembering that we're trying to deal with well being and make people's life a little better. Sounds simplistic. But if we could achieve that, then what Howard and I have tried to do here is worthwhile. So what would be your top three tips? I didn't even ask you that. I was gonna. I didn't even tell you I was gonna do this. So I apologize. But there we are. It seems like it's nothing you can't do, so this would be a breeze, I think. My top top. You mean like life tips? Yeah, anything. Yeah. Top three tips. My top. Because I can give surgical tips, but that would only really. My top eye surgery tip is hold the instrument like this. Don't breathe while you're. Close your eyes when you do this part. Sneeze when you got a scalpel in. Close your eyes when you're about to. Okay. No, I. You know, I. It's interesting. My number one life lesson, which I learned the hard way, and I think I'm going to say something now that everyone's learned at some point in some way, is that when you are faced with a terrible, terrible disappointment, you need to take it as an energy source to turn it into something else. And in my life, there have been a number of points where things went so unexpectedly badly, and somehow I inherently learned, without realizing I was doing it, to redirect that negative feeling, that negative energy into doing something else that then would be good for me. And right now it's interesting because I've had, you know, what I thought were terrible things that happened to me during my life. And right now, one of my kids is fighting leukemia. Oh, I'm so sorry. And that's a perspective which I've had, the perspective of what you need to do. But I see it in her now. And I. And I see that she has this. She is. She's not looking left, she's not looking right. She is focused straight on. And she's in a good mood, and she's, you know, taking it on, and she's like, let's just do this thing. And I look at her, and I'm not a religious man, but I am praying that it's all going to go according to plan and she will come out of this with that. Which I managed to turn around, I think, times 100. It's these moments of adversity which are actually the fuel for doing great things. Well, first of all, everybody at Ms. Men's radio station wishes her well. Of course we do. I am so sorry. I can't think of anything worse as, as a dad myself watching your kids go through it and we're kind of been through it ourselves, so that's really, that's stupid. I'm being very unprofessional because it's choked me up so that's totally unprofessional. But hey, perhaps, perhaps I shouldn't have shared it on public radio but, but you know, this happens to people. You know, this is something that happens and I, it's hit our family and I have to say, you know, that the care that she's getting at UCLH is stunningly amazing. Now you're, you're a medical man, so let me ask you this and I'll come on to your other two tips. Although it all seems irrelevant sort of thing that. Because that's such a huge thing and I know I'm keeping you longer than I should, but no, if that's all right with you, is that I firmly believe that a positive mental. And I'm not, I'm the last person who's ever a hippie. Even when hippies were popular, I thought they were rubbish. Positive mental attitude can achieve so much. And if you have a negative attitude, negative stuff will attract you like a magnet. If you have a positive mental attitude and a can do attitude, life becomes better. Yeah, no, I do. Is that, I agree that. No, but I agree that it sounds all kind of hippie, ethereal, you know, rubbish. But no, I'm. I'm also convinced that I'm. And you're asking me as a medical man and there's no doubt whatsoever and I, when I was doing, you know, the other kind of medicine, life saving medicine, when I was a younger man, I saw this. I saw people hold on and make it. And then I saw people go, nah, just let go. Yes. And boom, they were gone. There is something in. There is something in our brain and let's call it the thought processes that create whatever impulses, whatever chemical changes, whatever neuro, you know, autonomic nervous system control systems that are activated that change the way our physical body reacts to injury. It's an interesting thing. I once went to a lecture by Deepak Chopra and I thought this is going to be nonsense. I was captivated for two hours he had no notes. He took us into really rarefied realms of physics and science and Brought us all along with him, as at the Royal Geographical Society. And he said one thing. We're sorry, struck with me, which was, the brain is the largest pharmaceutical center you will ever need. It just manages to produce all of these extraordinary things within your body. And I've always taken that with me. And that's why I believe that sort of a pma, positive mental attitude hopefully will start. It started, you know, rolling about 10 years ago, I interviewed one of America's most decorated military generals. He'd been through the most extraordinary, extraordinary situations and bravery, et cetera, and fascinating guy. And I said to him, what's the one key thing, key message, the key thing you've learned? Kind of a similar question. And he said, the thing that strikes me constantly is that a man's survival, and he'd seen this thousands of times in front of him, doesn't depend on the injury. He said he's seen people's arms blown off and their faces hanging off if they want to live. And he's looked them in the eye. If they have that tenacity, they will survive always, always, always. And if they don't want. He said that just has constantly struck him. So that follows exactly what you're both saying, and we're talking here about Edge of Life stuff. But the thing is, I experienced that on things that were, anybody would agree, are terrible, emotional things to happen to you, because that's not as bad as Edge of Life, right? But it's still, at the time, it feels like the worst thing that ever happened. But I think this. This attitude, pm, pma, pma, I love it. This thing extends all the way down to even the simple stuff, the very simple stuff. If you're like, just now you asked me to play. When was the last time I played? Well, actually, in truth, I played on Wednesday night at the 606 in Chelsea. But when was the last time I played before that? A month before. So I have not had a chance to practice in a long time, and here I am. I didn't have time this morning to check even if the reed was gonna work, But I said, look, I've played for 40, 50 years. Let's just play. Just don't worry about it. And somehow something as simple as that, if you just switch your mind into positive mode, things work out better. It's so true. And in your interviewing career as a journalist, Justin, you must have. Not just with the general, but you must have seen this. You come across people who exude. I don't talk about being a braggarts and egotist, but people who exude a well deserved confidence, like, and I'm not blowing smoke up your backside like you do with. You're discussing eye surgery. It's your area of expertise, you know, totally. You are master of that universe. You know, if a leaf falls, you know about it, as Milton said. So I get that. But you must have met people and you come away thinking that's a very positive person, time after time. And it's often the most successful people that have that attitude and you can notice it and it's whether they are intellectually brilliant or whatever. They're even using the example of the Spice Girls. You interviewed them and I interviewed them at the start of their careers and throughout many times. And they have, even the very first time I met them. And these are girls that probably would have been working in a supermarket or wherever, but they had such a positivity and kind of a human energy based around that belief and positivity which just blew you off your seat. And they went into radio stations and they stood on the table and they did things. And what was fueling them was exactly the same thing. So yes, time and time again that it's a kind of. It's a connection to human beings as well, because that human connection gives you, I think, feeds that positivity and it's impossible without it. So I think people that have a negative energy or approach things in a more difficult way are disconnected from people often, which is sad. And then I guess it perpetuates itself. So I think that energy and positivity, it's a human warmth, a human energy and it can conquer, you would hope, anything or most things. So it's a wonderful thing. Top three tips, Justin. So it's a good question. I suppose the first one would be giving people the benefit of the doubt. I think society, particularly at the moment has been. There's so many divisions and increasingly we're pushed into segments, whether it's Brexit, whether it's all the obvious ones, religion or whatever. But increasingly society is marginalized and then there's an energy and anger. And human beings are psychologically flawed because they will automatically push against when they're pushed. They push against that whether it's right or wrong, to their detriment often. So I think always in my life anyway, it's been something that my mom has fostered in me from when I was born. Give people always the benefit of the doubt. And obviously sometimes people disappoint you things, but you can be facing the most ridiculous situations But I think keeping that in the back of your mind and never knowing what the other person in front of you is going through through. And sometimes the most rude and obnoxious and difficult individuals you first encounter turn out to be the most lovely and have a reason that they are in that frustration. So it's a hard lesson to hold, but it stood me. Well, that's very big of you. I mean that genuinely. It's very, very big of you to do that because, you know, I'm writing all the time. We are in such a situation now where we are so fragmented, we are so angry. I wrote a whole thing that I think there's a seismic shift coming, which I really do believe. But it's great that you could say, give people the benefit of the doubt. Most people don't. I think if most people did, it would look at how different society would be. And yes, there's times when people behave ridiculously and should be brought to attention and they don't. That's the problem sometimes that they're allowed and able to get away with things, particularly in politics and in senior positions and people take advantage of power that they have. So obviously, you know, it's, there's balance. But tip number one, good one. That's a big one. It's a life changing one. I got my number two. Okay. It came, came to my mind actually, and it was actually, I can't, I'll give it at the end of the, of the story because otherwise it gives it away. But this happened in, in one of the years that I was at a music college. So I took, I took time off in the middle of medical school to go to the Berkeley College of Music in Boston. I should do. Well, no, this is, this is how you end up being able to do two things. You have to study them. Right. So I was very fortunate. And my medical school was extremely. I don't know if they're trying to get rid of me, but they were, they were, they were actually very encouraging. Encouraging. And so I went to the Berkeley College of Music in Boston, which in the, in the 80s was the, one of the only places you could study jazz in the world. And I was in the middle of the first year, so just into the second semester. So it's, it's winter in Boston. You know, the snow rifts on the, on the side of the road are 6ft high. Slush everywhere. It's windy, it's horrible. Sounds nice. My cousin lives there. It looks dreadful. And so I'm, I'm, you know, hauling My tenor on my shoulder, up into my. Up to the first floor, up to my saxophone listen, which is with a guy who was with the Jazz Messengers at the time. Why am I blanking on his name now? That's terrible. That's because I'm. I'm 56. But it'll come. The blood flow will. The blood flow will come. So anyway, so I come into my lesson and I said. He says, how you doing? I said, and by the way, I'm going to switch into the way jazz musicians talk now, which is not the way professors of ophthalmology talk. He says, hi, how you doing? And I said, man, I'm depressed. He goes, why? I said, because I suck. He goes, what do you mean? What do you mean you suck? You sound good. I said, no, I sound like shit. Why are you saying you sound like shit? You sound good. Well, I'm walking through the practice rooms and I listen in over here and he sounds great. And I. I go over to the other side and I listen to him and he sounds great. And I go over here and she sounds great. And I go into the practice room and I'm playing and I sound like shit. He said, well, if those guys are sounding good, they're not practicing. They're just playing shit they already know how to do. If you go in there and you sound bad, that's because you're going to learn something because you're trying to do something you can't do. And that I'm telling you, it was like the Simpsons, you know, like the clouds just opened up, the sun came out. It was just. And I took that back to medical school and think about what it's like to for the first time be in a microscope that magnifies things 30 times. Then you've got your hands holding, like in one hand, the hand that you write with. I'm left handed. A surgical instrument. And in your other hand, which you don't write with, another instrument holding like a pencil, and you're in the microscope, looking down the microscope, and you're having to move things magnified 30 times on an eye. It's hard, right? Yeah, it was. And it was. And it was like. And I had this moment of pressure. I can't get this suture. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's good that you can't do it because you're gonna learn something. And so that's something which has lived with me for. Since then. Since then. Bill Pierce, who gave me this advice from the Jazz Messengers, from the Jazz messengers. Yeah, do listen. Right. You're that. But do you know what? What? You've just one of the things that really drives me crazy in 2019 and I used to be in the music industry and manage people. Horrible. And they expect it like that. And it's like, you do understand, you got to work, you got to craft, you got to practice, you got to rehearse. It doesn't just happen. Beyonce doesn't get like that because she's lazy and sits on her ass. She does it because she works herself to death to be the best that she can be. So does you know, any rate in Formula 1, driver don't get in the car because they've been on the north circuit and think they can drive a Ford Capri or something, you know, you know, an Escort. This is ridiculous. You got to work at it. And that is something which has been disconnected from life. Yeah. So. Well, the, the instant gratification is, is, is the one of the worst infections. It's endemic. And the phones have made it 10 times worse. Social media, the phone, Simon Cow. All of that seriously, being absolutely serious. You know, when I studied medicine, you had to go to the library, you had to go to the index, you had to look up on these little cards and then you got to go to the right shelf and then their Nate, you know, it's letters, then numbers and it's very hard to work out. And then the book's not in the right place. And then you, and you find that, and then you can't find it. Then you go to the library and she says, yes, it's out. I'll call it. I'll send you a postcard. In two weeks time, you can come and collect it. I've only ever seen that in movies. Well, I've never experienced it. I mean, people. That's how we used to study. Remember that? And now you just. You're in the middle of dinner and you pull out your cell phone and look it up. Google instantly the thing you want the answer to. Bang. Right? Two more tips. Second one for me, I suppose. Play to the edge. Not necessarily break rules, but break rules where and when it's appropriate. And if you can take things to the edge, that's always served me quite well. So, you know, society has rules and boundaries for a reason. And whether it's in anything that you do, whether it be, you know, on a legal basis or whatever. But if you can, if you take things to an edge in your own mind, that, you know, within reason. I found that that often has many advantages. And don't be afraid to play things right to the edge with, you know, with reason. And that served me extremely well. Society and the things have rules in place for a reason. But I think taking, you know, using your own common sense, where applicable. Not, you know, obviously there's boundaries, but that served me quite well. Play to the edge, I think, makes sense. Be your own. I had a patient who was a professor of psychology, and I said, what's your area of interest? And he said, I'm interested in risk, how humans evaluate risk. And so one of the things that he said in a nutshell, is that the human psychology is designed to be very bad at assessing risk. And that is perpetuated evolutionarily because it helps evolution. It goes exactly to what you're saying. If we were good, really good at calculating risk, we wouldn't do. We would have never gone to the moon. We would have never, you know, Jose Ignacio Barraquer would have never done the first keratomileusis that led to the laser icers that we now do. Risk is part of evolution. Yeah, exactly. And we're very bad. You know, if you have something, you will fight to keep it, whereas if it's something you could attain, you will not apply the same energy and logic to it. So it's those little things like that, I think always, it's. Obviously, it's difficult to change your own innate human character, but keeping that in mind, even if it just makes one or two decisions in your life different, I think can be very progressive. One more tip each. Oh, you stumped me. For me, I'll let you off because you play. No, no, I'll get it. But no, no, he goes first. He goes first. The other thing for me, I suppose there's many things I could say, but the other thing for me that I think is relevant to everybody, you know, is to keep in mind time. So people are going through hard things, people are going through good things. But keep in mind that it's. It's. Everything is moving. Everything is always moving. So no matter whatever challenges you're facing, whatever you're doing in your life, to enjoy the good or to get through the bad, things are not. People think of things as a solid block of things. This is the way it is. This is the way it will always be. It's not the way it will always be. Look at how society has changed in the last year, in the last 10 years. Keep always in mind, I think, and it seems a silly thing to say, but sometimes people overlook it that everything is in motion, in constant motion. So a bad moment is a bad moment. That's all it is. It's a moment. And I think keeping that maybe more at the forefront of the mind might be no bad thing. That's a great tip. That is really. That is really. But that then that ties into what we were talking about before, about music and jazz, is that in jazz, you are literally living in the moment. You're not thinking about the future when you're thinking about what you're going to play in the next microsecondition. And living in the moment and actually enjoying yourself despite anything else around you. Being able to live. That is part of recognizing so, so important. People say to you, Russ, why do you live at a million miles an hour? I say, cause most important of all, wish your daughter. Thank you. A good recovery. I hope she makes great progress, you know, and we wish you all well. This has been one of my favorite interviews like we've ever done, and we've done a hell of a lot. Justin Stoneman, thank you so much for coming in. Top journalist, and now we can see what he's doing. And one of the top eye surgeons. And I'm gonna say jazz players in the world. Sax players. What the hell? Dan Reinstein, thank you so much for coming in for men's radio station. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. You. You're listening to Russ Kane on radio station. Women really talk.