Dr. Bob was born in New York City. An unusual place for someone who became such a lover of wilderness and things far from the concrete jungle.
His family moved to Texas when he was five years old. Lived outside of Houston in a small community known as Seabrook, near a slightly better known region, Clear Lake where he went to high school and played baseball.
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At an early age he became athletic and stuck with athletics throughout high school and early college. Once he quit competing he became fairly dedicated to training for health with both resistance training and cardiovascular training as part of his lifestyle all the way through college, medical school and into his adulthood.
He attended college at Sam Houston State University where he was convinced by his mentor and Cell Biology professor to give up his idea of becoming a fisheries biologist and consider medical school. After taking the MCAT and scoring well, he decided to throw his hat into the ring and just go ahead and apply to the schools in Texas. After interviewing at the University of Texas school systems, he fell in love with UT Southwestern and ranked that school number one, which eventually had him on the hook for going to medical school.
He appreciated his education at UT Southwestern realizing it prepared him well. Graduating right at the 10th percentile of his class gave him the opportunity to go into whatever field he wished. He realized he was born to be a surgeon, but after four years of medical he also realized he was not a fan of the hospitals. By this time in his career he was already starting to sniff the fact that there was a lot of questionable practice in medicine. He had also discovered Alaska, having traveled there to work on a commercial fishing boat in the summer between college and med school. Since he knew he wanted to be in Alaska, and he dreamed of opening his own fishing lodge, emergency medicine seemed like a logical choice, and once again he was able to attend the program that he ranked first. After completing a residency in emergency medicine at Methodist Hospital of Indianapolis, he was ready for his new life to begin. As luck would have it, a job was available on the Kenai peninsula, the area he had fallen in love with the first time we visited Alaska. He moved up there, started practicing medicine at Central Peninsula Hospital and immediately turned his off shift attention to building a hunting and fishing lodge.
Within three years of arriving to Alaska, All Alaska Outdoors Lodge became a reality. He had obtained his pilots license and captains license during his residency years and began guiding on the rivers and flying and exploring Alaska in his first aircraft, a Piper Super Cub.
He quickly realized his heart was in flying, and obtained his commercial an instrument rating and eventually started flying for his own fishing lodge. He worked his way up through flying 185’s to a de Havilland Beaver which he still owns to this day. Nowadays, he spends around 100 days a summer piloting a commercial bush plane taking people on the adventure of a lifetime.
He plodded along in his medical career, successfully treating somewhere around 60,000 patients in what spanned a 27 year career. By the end, what plagues most ER doctors got him, he was just flat burnt out. He was starting to see patients in his own age range afflicted with the metabolic diseases that ravage this country. In 2014 he decided to train with Cenegenics, a company built by doctors, with a vision of health and wellness achieved through a proactive, integrative medicine design. Of all the training he had in his entire life, this was probably the most impactful. He was at an age where the ADLs were starting to get rough. 100 days of bush activity a summer, flying and guiding, while trying to practice full-time emergency medicine, raise a family, coach baseball and all of the other things, was starting to become more difficult at the same time that his energy level and drive was starting to decline. Turning to Health And Wellness medicine changed all of that. Once he applied the knowledge he learned from the literature that is readily available in this domain, his life and body transformed.
By 2017 he had discontinued his practice at Central Peninsula Hospital and started to focus more on health and wellness and building his private practice. He continue to work in some small hospitals to provide expert emergency care in rural areas where the need was underserved. Eventually, the development of the Covid pandemic and all of its baggage was more than he could tolerate, and he completely resigned from all forms of reactive medicine. He now practices solely in a concierge style practice with a small group of patients focused on learning the most about their pre-existing risk and how to mitigate the chance of a bad outcome. A blended model of medicine is provided by Dr. Bob, reaching first for lifestyle but still including conventional medication when indicated and necessary.
Dr. Ledda’s Prescription for Success:
Number 1: Go with what fits your personality the most.
Number 2: Be willing to reassess your needs often.
Number 3: Be a champion for your own health.
Connect with Dr. Ledda
email: bobledda@alaska.net
Phone: 907-953-0473
Lodge Website: allalaska.com
Notable quotes from Dr. Ledda’s interview:
the ER physicians’ problem is to find out what the patient’s chief compliant is. When your job is to seek complaints…well, I’ve made the point.
I was luckier than I was good, but I was also good.
Emergency medicine is about 20 percent joy, and 80 percent misery.
I didn’t go down there to save my own butt. I’m going to save other people’s butts.
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Access the Show Transcript Here
Transcript
[0:00] You know the holidays are a very busy time and as we approach this year’s season we’d like to hear about your experiences working the holidays as a healthcare professional.
[0:12] So please share your stories with us.
[0:15] Tell us what you’ve learned and you might just be featured in a very special RX for Success holiday episode.
[0:23] Just visit our X for Success podcast.com forward slash contact hyphen us that’s where you can leave.
[0:32] Music.
[0:46] Paging dr. cook paging dr. cook dr. Kirk you’re wanted in the o.r. dr. Koh.
[0:54] Music.
[1:18] Hello everyone and welcome to prescription for Success I’m dr. Randy cook your host for the podcast.
[1:25] Which is a production of MD coaches providing leadership and Executive coaching for Physicians by physicians to overcome burnout.
[1:35] Transition your career develop as a leader or whatever your gold might be.
[1:40] Visit MD coaches on the web at my MD coaches.com.
You’re not in this alone and don’t forget CME credit is available when you listen with us just look for cmf I in the show notes to learn how.
[1:56] My guest today practiced traditional emergency medicine for the first 27 years of his career now he’s focusing on lifestyle medicine.
[2:06] In addition to operating his fishing lodge in Alaska and flying passengers into the Outback so let’s hear my conversation
with dr. Bob letter.
[2:17] And I am really excited to be talking to a guest today who is in a time zone where I’ve never
conversed with a guest on this podcast dr. Bob Letta in Soldotna.
Alaska thank you very much for being here and welcome to prescription for success thank you Randy I’m looking forward to the opportunity to talk to you guys about my unique life.
Well it is indeed a very unique life and I’m really looking forward to hearing about it but.
Before we get into what’s going on now I want to do what we always do and that is
sort of explore the entirety of your career trajectory I’m fascinated to learn that
you were actually born in New York City what was the what was the family doing in New York.
My dad worked for Shell Oil Company and that was one of the major hubs I guess back in the day and then so that’s you know he would he grew up and my mom and dad both grew up in
New York City
so basically he was employed there I was born there and relatively quickly he got transferred to Houston Texas which I guess was
for me that was probably a good move because I don’t have the wild kind of laced into my genome.
And the concrete jungle is usually a place I’m trying to get away from so it worked out to end up on the outskirts of Houston has a young.
[3:46] Kid and teenager probably better than it would have been if I’d have been stuck in the confines of a big city like New York city so with that I’d you really didn’t have any oxide about leaving New York
no I don’t I don’t recall too much about New York I went back and visited some as I was young so I have some memories of the city but nothing from that early childhood
well let’s fast forward just a little bit and I want to talk about
how you got interested in medicine I know that you did your undergrad studies at Sam Houston State and
back then you thought you were going to be a wildlife biologist but something got in the way you want to tell us that story
yeah you know II was studying Fisheries biology and of course I was doing pretty well in all of the didactic I always was a good student in high school I was a good student and so I always gobbled up the sciences and math and
so of course I was excelling in college and those.
[4:43] Some categories and you know even with Fisheries biology you know you needed to understand the biology of the cell and eventually I took
cell biology course and he was known as the hardest Professor you know in the entire science department and there’s always one of those right
there is and he was he was very hard but you know he and I hit it off and
you know I like the challenge he provided and he was great instructor and I did well in that class and then I started you know taken additional stuff on purpose that he provided because it was applicable to The Sciences and at some point he gave me an
desk near his office and I studied there a lot and eventually just started to Mentor me and he sort of said.
[5:31] You know if you have go into Fisheries biology and I’m not sure he’s right retrospectively because I think there’s some people that make some good livings in that domain now especially with the environmental Consciousness that so many companies
have to be involved with but back in the day I see what he said he goes you’re going to end up.
Professor like me or not going to be able to take your family on vacation you know there’s so many things you can do with your capabilities that would.
Put you in a better financial situation any throughout wanted to become an engineer or a doctor or something and I’m like well my mom was a nurse I thought I never thought about that
yeah I molded over a little bit he said you know just go take the MCAT see how you do so I took the MCAT and I did pretty well on it you know and at that point he goes well why don’t you just apply and go interview I mean he kind of just baited me along no
and so the next thing you know I was interviewing at all the UT Southwestern schools and I think I got through three of them and I canceled the fourth one
because I canceled San Antonio Because by the time I interviewed at Galveston and Houston UT Southwestern I’m like you know
one of those will be fine and I ranked UT Southwestern number one.
[6:44] And I got in and then and at that point it was kind of like well I sort of signed a contract saying I’d go to medical school
I don’t know that I was ever firm on wanting to go but I was sort of like I at least had to go show up now so that’s really it I mean it was not a
lifelong dream desire I had enough exposure to the medical system with my mom having been a nurse for all of my childhood and young adult years that I
felt like I’m you know I wasn’t completely you know like just stepping into something I had no awareness of.
[7:15] And then the the follow-up question to that is what you well let me ask you one other thing were you aware the you were.
In a fairly small minority of students that they’re really got in Fairly easily and that a lot of people were really sweating that admissions process or not.
To be honest I don’t think I’d have been phased if I hadn’t a God in.
[7:38] And I was not sweating it I was kind of like you know well we’ll see what happens you know
I mean and then and then the next thing you know I’m like well I guess I’m going to med school I mean so it wasn’t like my life would have been devastated in any fashion had I not got in I mean I suppose everybody would have handled you know
I’m not saying I might have felt rejected you know you yet hate that but.
[8:03] Nobody likes Rejection it wouldn’t add Evans stated my world I don’t think had I not gotten into med school
and once you were there did it turn out to be largely what you sort of expected or there surprises or.
[8:19] What was the hospital surprises were you Joe you know the first year of med school was exactly what I expected I was gobbling down more basic science.
Men I enjoyed it I thought Anatomy was amazing that was my favorite class by far just like college but higher and deeper right.
[8:37] Yeah that’s all it was I mean it was just pure science and pure study and I was good at that and I enjoyed it the second year.
[8:46] When we you know when we started getting into pharmacology and diseases I was a little less thrilled it was starting to deviate from stuff that I.
Didn’t have a preconceived super interest in Pharmacology of course was the toughest course I thought.
As far as the two years didactic you’re bogged down and I mean
I certainly wasn’t in love with it I did okay on all my all my classes but it wasn’t.
The same just innate drive to learn it that I had just learning the basic sciences and anatomy and physiology and all that stuff I was fascinated by that I loved it.
You know studying diseases it wasn’t as interesting to me.
Either you know I mean I I was able to accomplish it but it wasn’t like I knew I had done the right thing you know I mean I was.
A little discouraged by the second year and hoping the third year was going to be a little different and was the third year.
[9:46] This is a point where you’re really starting to see some patients right yeah I to be honest.
I realized in the third year that I really didn’t like hospitals I mean this could be right I really did you know I was like you know gosh I mean I just
I wasn’t thrilled with the hospital environment you know and yeah that can be a problem so it kind of starts limiting what you’re going to do now what do you what do you think it was about the hospital that you found sort of oppressive.
[10:19] You probably going to laugh when I say this one sick people you know I mean that’s what matters like certain when I did.
And I didn’t give a lot of consideration to that you know I mean I didn’t give a lot of consideration to what what I was going to be facing as a doctor I thought that you know would be great to help people everybody wants that.
But after while steady dose of sick people you know I mean I was an ER physician and and you know we will get to the reason I became an ER physician and not a surgeon was because I didn’t like hospitals or on those guys spent the least time in the hospital.
[10:57] You know but the trade-off is
the ER Physicians problem is to find out what the patient’s Chief complaint is.
Okay now when your job is to seek complaints.
[11:16] You know I think I’ve made the point you know yeah you’re looking for a complaint and you know a steady diet of that gets old after a while you know and I did it for a courier but it allowed me the most freedom of time
out of the ER I mean out of the hospital environment which was the reason I chose emergency medicine because I was.
Cut from the cloth and the surgeon for sure and in a fairly predictable schedule I should think you knew when you were going to go to work and when you’re going to be off and.
And you leave it behind you too you’re not beholden to anyone when you walk out of that ER there’s nobody you got it you don’t have to call and check a lab tonight it fit that.
Algorithm for me and then the second part of it was I discovered Alaska right before medical schools so another ball had started rolling at the same time.
I dreamed of building this.
[12:10] Fishing lodge that I built which has become a pretty successful business for me and and makes my life interesting and dynamic and it changes all the time you know my.
My life in the Summers very different from my life in the winter I’ve been.
[12:26] And variety is great I mean as I say it’s the spice of life you know a steady diet of doing the same thing over and over and over again Burns anybody out and I
I’ve been fortunate enough that I found a number of different income streams that are
effective for me and most of them I enjoy in fact all of them I enjoy now I mean if you ask me the quick question which you probably might get to this and I hate to steal your thunder would you do it again it’s like absolutely.
[12:52] Now what you’re exactly right that that is that is one of the things that I that I actually always try to get to in this conversation
I do want to I actually want to get into what you’re doing right now but I also want to hear a little bit about your.
[13:12] Experience in your postgraduate training what was it like did you have any
reservations about what were you doing what you were doing once you got there I noticed you did your internship at my old stomping grounds in Birmingham Alabama
you know I enjoyed Birmingham quite a lot you know I you’ll laugh at me but I got interviews everywhere that I applied to for emergency medicine.
And I ended up
gambling on the Birmingham one because it was the South the people I’m comfortable with them you know it wasn’t too far away from the Gulf Coast of Texas and you know as close to family and.
They were Southern they talk like I did a lot of that you know yeah like you know but it was a provisional status it was in its third year and they were anticipating no problems being made of full residency
and so I took a chance and I ranked it number one and I got in and I spent my second and third year in Indianapolis and that was where I got the really good part of my education I couldn’t
tell you how great a job they did we’ll get back to our conversation in just a.
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[15:53] And now let’s get back to today’s interview so you like the Indianapolis a lot.
I did I did Indianapolis was good part of the country I got to fill you know some outdoor needs I found a little Farmhouse about it
25 minute drive from the hospital and so I was out in the country a little ways I bought it and it gave me some some outdoor time because I fixed it up and ended up selling it at the end of my 2 years and actually made.
15,000 bucks off of it or Sam beat their days was yeah you know so I mean I got but I was able to like do some work at a little seven Acre Farm House on a little had a little Orchard and I got to.
Do landscaping and wow that I had and so you know I had life or a.
Yeah I mean I had a little you know it was nice because I had you know had a lot of lawn to mow though but it gave me he kept me outside you know and so I enjoyed that you know they prepared me very well because I.
[16:51] I got out of residency and
and I was interested in getting back to those stomping grounds in Alaska that I learned about when I went up there to commercial fish right before starting med school you know I was lucky I
the town that I wanted to live in was looking for an ER doc right when I got out so you know
the pieces always seem to fall together I pray a lot I think that a great coincidence yeah yeah and so I go to this but this is a you know I’m not going to someplace where I’m gonna have a bunch of colleagues to bounce stuff off of
I went to a hospital that in those days it was two 12-hour shifts you know the morning shift in the night shift single coverage and.
[17:32] You know there was all the gamut of emergency medicine that you could get in that small town was coming through those doors and nobody to lean on I mean it was what I learned and now what I could do with that you know
and they prepared me well because one thing I do pride myself on and I guess I made it unless there’s something lurking in my past I don’t know about was I did 27 years of emergency medicine and I never spoke to a lawyer.
I would say that’s nearly unheard of.
The environment in the last could maybe different than it is elsewhere in the US but you’re exactly right it’s just.
It’s just a place where people get angry and they call her lawyer but I’m happy to hear that they’re worked out well for you.
So I was you know that that was something that I was I know that I was luckier than I was good but but I was also good
So you you’re not going to do it with just luck not with 27 years of practice you know so you got.
[18:33] You have to practice in a specialty that you really enjoyed and you got to live in a place that you really love.
Sounds like you got certified in operating fixed Wing aircraft which I’m proud of that you did that because those helicopters were never made to stay in the area long.
Who makes a lot of sense it’s this despite the success of all that you reached a point after
some quarter of a century where you felt like you needed to do something else and I’m just going to let you take it from there what changed
I tell you what happened so as I was going through my medical career and and certainly emergency medicine is about
you know 20% Julian 80% misery you know about 20% of the encounters are just you know they’re great you know you help them a little bit or a lot depending on what happened and then the 80% you seem like you’re fighting with somebody.
[19:23] They’re so let you know it’s a career that has a high level of burnout and at 27 years I was way past the average you know length of of a career.
[19:33] Ten years ago at 17 years
I got the idea that I wasn’t going to be able you know I started having children late in life so I’m 50 I’ll be 59 soon and I have a 12 year old I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to quit working and it was like I don’t know that I can do this for till you know my
current 12 year old is you know out of college I’m going to have to start thinking about other income streams now granted I built this fishing lodge but it wasn’t
who’s giving me a lot of
lifestyle positives you know I’m flying an airplane and making money a little bit but not a lot but it’s not replacing of medical income you know sure
and so I was like I have to figure out something to do with all this intellectual property that I have that’s not grinding it out in the ER till I’m 70.
[20:21] Which is about how those numbers work out let me know when Brett’s out of college we’re talking I’ll be 70 you know yeah
and I didn’t really have a plan but the plan fell in my lap and it went kind of like this I was starting to get a little run down myself
at 47 running a fishing lodge I would back then I was director of VMS on the Kenai Peninsula I was you know still working full-time ER and
I was starting to get to where my energy levels were down and I was starting to get a little bit down about my ability to just keep up with
everything I was going to have to deal with and then to top that off I went into a swing shift one day at about 3 p.m.
[21:03] And I sat down the login and Sumner stuffed in EKG in my face and said I need you in Room 5 and I’m like yeah I guess you do it was a inferior stemi oh dear and so I kind of.
Pulled you know got logged in looked at the guys demographics real quick looked at his Vital Signs ran in and started getting the you know quick
TPA history that you get on somebody that needs TPA and when you’re in an outlying Center especially 10 years ago
where you know it’s a Medevac to get them to a cardiologist in the cath lab and you know TPA is the way you go most of the time well
the thing about this guy was I was looking in the mirror he was 47 years old same age as me I go in there to get the
the history of risks of why he’s having a heart attack and he’s got none I mean I looked at him and he’s about 20 pounds overweight I’m like yeah
probably about as well overweight as I am he’s got no high blood pressure no diabetes never smoked.
Didn’t know his cholesterol status no family history
it was inexplicable why this guy was having a heart attack but here he was having one and I’m like you know throw I know I can have one tomorrow I got no reason to think I’m not about to have one we do
survey we don’t pay any attention we the disease model of medicine which I’ve practiced expertly for 27 years is a model where you sit around and wait for the signs of end organ damage and then run tests to see if that’s what happened.
[22:28] And then you start to prescribe pharmaceutical agents to mitigate the problem and they don’t work very well okay
well got through that swing shift went home and I was getting ready to transition from swings tonight so my habit was to try to stay up as late as I could to make the next night easier sure and I was watching TV.
[22:51] And this energetic commercial came on years ago there was this guy the guy that was one of the founding fathers of synergetics Jeff life.
[23:00] And he was this old guy that in the pictures of the ad he was 74 years old and he looked like a ball headed wrinkled Tarzan you know.
[23:10] And I’m like what does that guy know that I don’t know because I’m a lot younger than him and I’m trying to look like that I can’t do it anymore now I had as a young athlete I was always very fit
muscular and you know ran low body fat but I was losing that ability to maintain that frame you know starting to feel rundown and not that good and then I see a guy my age is having a heart attack and pretty soon you’re like you know the world’s falling apart
I gotta do something different and I see that ad and it’s like this guy is went from looking worse than I look right now when he was
54 whatever it was in the photos and then they show them at like 60 and then 65 and then 70 and then 74 the guys getting healthier looking as he ages you know and I’m like I want to know what that guy knows I called the 800 number will the guy that was the sales
doc that apparently my phone call went into he was relentless.
[24:08] And thank God he was because he pursued me he kept calling me at a very busy life as you can imagine I was working full-time ER I had my
first kid he was one years old at the time
and you know and and I’m trying to figure out when I could go do this week long course and start to learn some of this intellectual property that’s going to turn me into Jeff life you know I was just trying to save my own butt
I mean I was not looking at this as a career move I was just like well it’s a good start you know it’s a fairly expensive course but I it’s continuing medical education at least the governmental kick back a little bit on it or no pay less taxes so I can finally.
[24:46] Took me about a year and a half I went and did the thing.
And to just be honest when I sat through this very well-designed course by these doctors that had been focusing more on the literature of
health and wellness than on necessarily you know
diagnostic disease stuff what I learned with the intellectual property they shared with me I knew was going to be life-changing after a week I just had no idea how fast it was going to change
my life you know three weeks I was like walking on air
it’s like I feel so much better you know my energy levels and now all of a sudden life seems like I can tackle it again and if you if you ever went to any of the places like even my Lodge website I think has my before and after photos if you see what I look like
and what I went to in three months it blew my mind and then the beauty of it is.
[25:35] With the intellectual property that I gained in the treatment algorithms that they prescribed I’ve maintained that for ten years now I mean I still run around single digit body fat
so you actually you actually adopted the lifestyle will before you became a practitioner am I reading that correctly that’s correct they allow I entered their fellowship program
and adopted the lifestyle and my initial plan was well maybe I
you know I’ll do a little of this but after I saw what it did in my own life as a.
[26:12] That’s a person who you know I’m a Christian and it’s like this is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given how can I not share this with other people
and so it drove me into figuring out how to actually transition into this type of doctor instead of you know the plan happened after I saw what it did for me it was like okay
I didn’t just go down there to save my own but I’m going to save other people’s but I want to make sure I understand how you
become qualified to do this and it sounds like that that you you that you’re expected to be sent a Genex disciple somebody that walks the walk
before you can be blessed to become a synergetics practitioner am I
close to correct or not I mean you almost have to write you how can you hold yourself up to be a lifestyle doctor and and say hey I’m going to preach health and wellness lifestyle but at the end of the day I practice a blended model
which is lifestyle treats everything but it won’t cure everything and there are times when I have to reach into the old tool bag of the
medical model where I’m prescribing medicine but I do that much more carefully and in a much more personalized way now.
[27:31] In order to prescribe lifestyle medicine.
The up probably have to be able to sell that you follow what you preach we as a health and wellness position yeah you probably what you said is true part of the course was you
got your own assessment so you didn’t have to
follow through with their treatment algorithms after taking the course I mean you could say well I learned a lot of helpful stuff I’m going to use it for myself try to take better care of myself glad I learned this you know yada and gone on about way but if you wanted to do the fellowship
yeah I mean I suppose you probably needed to be under treatment you probably to do it well you probably needed to be a poster child and prove that it was a efficacious.
[28:14] Well I wouldn’t be a very good interviewer if I didn’t facilitate some conversation about the elephant in the room and that is that synergetics has its detractors and then I know that that’s not a surprise
to you but what’s your response to
those who say that this is for all the good that it might be promoting it’s actually making a ton of money by selling things that maybe people don’t necessarily need.
[28:46] You know that questions out there and I just have to put it to you yeah I know you know I mean I Googled synergetics after I kind of
relatively quickly after I went down the pathway of okay I’m all in you know and you will you will find some negatives I mean look I saw guys with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths on their blog picture you know talking about our synergetics was it and I’m like yeah you know
wrong client okay yeah I mean yeah you know it’s like
you can criticize anything you know I saw stuff where it was like it’s a growth hormone thing and you know the hardly anybody in synergetics is on growth hormone to take growth hormone you have to pass yeah you know to negative growth hormone stimulation I mean you have to.
[29:26] Fail to growth hormone stimulation test I mean that’s FDA that’s government you can
you know it but they do they did conceptualize the thought process of hmmm why not keep your hormones at a
youthful level I think I would credit synergetics with these was these couple docks that realized hey you know part of our problem is our testosterone solo we’re just pigs
you know and and
and they fixed it on themselves and then they went holy cow look at how our lipid panels are getting better and our insulin sensitivity is improving and we’re not heavy anymore and we can exercise harder and we can recover from exercise
so I guess to answer the question what do I say to the detractors I’ll just spell it out because we’re all physician I presume everybody listening as a physician
so for the most part if we think about what a hormone is most of us recognize but maybe haven’t ever broke it down this simple in your brain.
[30:22] Hormone is a naturally occurring molecule that is made by a organ in your body when a year.
Collectively known as the endocrine system and these molecules bind receptors on almost every cell in your body
and are internalized by that receptor and carried to the nucleus of the cell where they turn genes on that make your cells work right
and without fail almost all of our hormones tend to decline as we age they are replaceable not as medicines
but bioidentical e as the exact molecule that is in your body naturally occurring.
These are not molecules that we do not know what they might do like cholesterol medicines there’s 300 known side effects
you don’t know for sure what all they’re doing besides lowering LDL and stabilize the plaques to things that are probably good but there’s other things that.
You know hormones are hormones I mean these molecules have occurred in your body so the real question is what do they do when you take a guy who’s on the decline and you
make him 25 again well.
[31:31] I can tell you things that they’ve been demonstrated to do in double-blind literature immediately Improvement in insulin sensitivity
bone density with no change in lifestyle prescription increases obviously they put their anabolic so they promote wound healing and
of course when you resistance training in or when you train physically you damage
your cardio but your musculoskeletal system and you then you heal it and that’s why it builds stronger the one of the things that I tell any patient that I put on testosterone and email that I put on testosterone is that
the biggest benefit of testosterone is its ability to enhance the exercise prescription now if I have had a couple of guys on a marathon runner 60 years old.
[32:20] T levels were pretty good
bone density was good because he’s pounding the heck out of his bones all the time but this guy was ideal body weight very thin and he didn’t check a lot of boxes as far as any sexual dysfunction I’m like I’m not sure testosterone
really you need it
I mean it’s not a one-size-fits-all I mean it’s a personalized medicine thing but the detractors are hormones bad I got to be honest I could destroy anybody that wants to debate me on this because I got plenty of literature to back up what I say
they don’t know the literature and they
speak with the media hype or whatever testosterone is not the end-all of what we do.
[33:02] It is an adjunct to what we do it is helpful
in enhancing the exercise prescription in patients and improves insulin sensitivity and helps me reverse diabetes if I can get patients to lose weight through improved metabolic Health which testosterone is helpful in I can definitely
probably reduce their mortality and.
People feel better on it and then you know it does wonderful things in the sexual domain which oftentimes
people as they are aging couples are starting to have less efficacy in the bedroom
and you know there’s plenty of science out there that says the more sex you have the longer you live too so you know these are domains that that the you know medicine is trying to come up with.
Kills foreign substances that will somehow have an effect in all of these various domains you know the naturally occurring molecule is right there it’s easy to administer to relatively inexpensive
pharmaceutical industry can’t profit off of it so it’s not going to gain a lot of Headway in the
disease model Community because they have no dog in that fight or if they have a dog in the fight.
[34:16] The dogs losing because people are getting healthier and so the answer to your question is well to debate somebody who thinks they’re armed well enough to attack me
I’m ready
but we don’t have time in this conversation for me to explain to you you know to sit and go through the literature of why it makes sense to carefully screen people particularly in the middle age years of life when the decline in testosterone is starting to have those negative metabolic effects in that loss of feeling of well-being to consider
trial of testosterone and lifestyle modification because those people that do like I have done will hit it out in the park.
Dr. Bob let I have really enjoyed our conversation today I appreciate you taking the time to be here and at this point I’m going to get out of your way and audience dr. Bob Letta is going to give us his personal prescriptions for success
so I’m kind of glad that I’ve reached a place in life.
[35:14] What I can focus on my own health I sleep at night because I’m not an ER doctor anymore and of course we know that that’s one of the main five domains of Wellness is you’ve got to address your sleep I get to
do a medical model where I get to engage my patients at a much deeper level than.
Any disease model doc typically is able to do so I dig into their health really minut fashion to really assure myself that
they’re probably not going to die of one of the big metabolic
you know diseases I pray they don’t get cancer and hopis reduce their their rate of cancer or their risk of cancer and and it’s enjoyable and it’s done you know.
[35:57] Without a lot of the
very difficult pressures that are put on doctors in all of the other domains when you’re dealing with life and death and all of that so I was lucky it took me a over a quarter Century to find this place but now it’s a place where I feel like I’m doing some good my patients
appreciate me like it is a concierge type practice you know we don’t Bill Insurance directly and there’s there’s some pride to be taken in that you know these people didn’t just walk into the ER because they were entitled to see you for
no money you know these are people that are putting their own money up to pay for your expertise and that creates a different relationship that I like as well
but you know everybody that I that becomes my patient they all end up becoming my friends to I mean you know I rewrite before our interview I just spoke with
the young lady that I’ll be seeing in the Las Vegas office and December you know and we talked for a long time and we talked about kids and catching up it’s just a different environment and and I’m lucky that I’m at a place in my career you know I worked I did a quarter Century of emergency medicine hopefully I’m not destitute right well I’m not
I’d like to continue to utilize my intellectual property to do some good and help people for as long as possible
and if it can protect me from moving into the nest egg that I’ve that I’ve set up for myself and my family through my first 25 years and just kind of keep me from having to mess with that wealth and just kind of.
[37:26] Keep a little bit of cash flow coming it fits and and that’s what I have now it allows me to run my fishing lodge with
more preciseness and it’s a type of lifestyle that you can sort of turn the spigot on and off you know I mean my patients know I’m a little less available June through September than I am this time of year
so that you know my prescription for Success was I went with what I thought fit my.
[37:52] Personality the most and what I wanted in life 25 years ago and then I let it evolve
to a place where that no longer fit my needs analysis and I was burnt out and I looked and found something that.
[38:07] Thought was very very fulfilling and I’m at ten years now into this and it’s clearly had a great life so much more
Kumbaya knowing that my coronary arteries are clean my plaque test is low I do not have unstable plaques Micah rodiger clean I’m very fit my all my health risk markers look great and I survey them in great detail
on myself like I do my patients and that
makes a person feel comfortable and it’s a lot different than looking at that 47 year old guy and going I wonder if I could have a heart attack tomorrow I know that’s not going to happen
I’m so comfortable that I’m not having a heart attack anytime soon you know and most guys in 59 probably can’t say that
dr. Bob let I really appreciate you being here to share your story with us today it’s been fascinating and I have really enjoyed the conversation before we go I want to give you an opportunity to
tell our audience where they can find you if they’d like to
well you can email me at Bob Letta at Alaska dotnet my personal cell phone number I’m
perfectly happy to have that out there 90-79 530 473 you can go to my Lodge website all.
[39:24] Alaska dot calm and you know I have I’ve set up a system where.
People come to my fishing lodge I have a lot of doctors.
[39:35] Determined to sisters that are one’s an ER physician and the others anesthesiologist take care of them you know I do treat.
Female menopause which is very important part of the practice as well but.
[39:50] Any rate they can they can come to the lodge and I can do an assessment while they’re at the lodge
they can meet me in Las Vegas if they’re interested in becoming a patient and having a kind of a higher degree of surveillance on their own personal health and maybe some health and lifestyle Wellness coaching or maybe they just want to come
fly around in a beaver with me in the summer and come to my fishing lodge in there already dialed in and in perfect health I hope that’s where they’re at I bet there’ll be a lot of fun.
Yeah so the and then my email address it’s just Bob let Alaska dotnet
happy to dialogue with anybody if they’re interested in becoming a synergetics patient I can look into whether we have any proof I’m sorry ascending Genex clinician I can look into whether we’re going to have any upcoming training in the future
you know I’d be happy to visit I really believe in what I’m doing now with this health and wellness kind of proactive high level of disease surveillance model
and if I could push somebody to take their career to that place.
[40:53] I would be happy to do so I feel like I accomplished something worthwhile
for meaning I got another recruit you know I mean it’s like the old starfish story you know you’re the only you know you can only save one starfish
but the more the more you can throw into the ocean the better and if you have help you can save more people I mean what you know this country is faced with some really really
harrowing medical reality.
With you know I mean look at how bad the Obesity epidemic became through covid you know and I don’t know that we’ve shown any signs of reversing that yet
you know art we’ve got challenges in this country and if we don’t start to address our long-term Health we’re going to we’re going to have problems there also so you know I’m I love to have somebody you know pick my brain about how I got to this point
and be happy to help share that pathway with them if anybody wants to reach out to me it’s winter so I got a little extra time.
Well Bob you’re very generous and and I appreciate that and once again thank you so much for being our guest on prescription for success.
Well thanks for talking with me I hope everybody found it useful and it was nice to meet with you Randy and anytime you want to come up and down
go out I know you’re a pilot yourself you want to come out and fly around in the beaver just look us up there at all Alaska.com.
[42:16] Thank you so much for joining us today you can really help us with a five star rating.
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just by listening special thanks to Ryan Jones who created and performs our theme music also to Craig Clausen of claussen’s solutions group.
[42:59] Who edits the show and remember be sure to fill your prescription for success with my next episode.
[43:06] Music.
