PODCAST: Rabbi Avraham Friedman & the Life Saving Work of Chaim Medical

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Hello friends and welcome back to my channel. Today we have something different, something we've never done before. This is a one-on-one conversation with a very special man named Rabbi Abraham Freriedman. Rabbi Freriedman is a successful entrepreneur based in the United States in New York who has put his work aside. He decided to put his business aside to focus on work at a nonprofit called Kaim Medical.

[00:00:20]Rabbi Freriedman serves as the director of clinical outreach and a oncology coordinator for Kim Medical. He helps patients who are struggling with life-threatening illnesses to find the comfort, the support, and the guidance they need to get through the challenges they are facing medically. Please listen and enjoy this conversation with Rabbi Freriedman. Last night I was reading about medical and it's actually quite a sad and emotional story about this young boy who gets diagnosed with a terrible form of cancer, lives for a couple years, he's going through treatments, then his the time, you know, he's turning 13 years old. It's the time of his bar mitzvah and he can't speak anymore, but he's still at this event and he's dancing. He's trying to be happy and then he passes away. This boy was Kaim Kahan. Right.

[00:01:11]>> Right.

[00:01:13]He was the son of Shvi Kahan who upon the passing of her son where you know most people would just sit back, mourn, you know, and go on with their life uh as best as they can.

[00:01:31]She did the opposite. She didn't sit back and she decided that the journey that she went through was a very very difficult journey.

[00:01:41]Uh you know the the maze of the medical system is very very complex and she had a very hard time going through that process and and and getting help. There was no one to reach out to. And she decided that in memory of his son, she's going to do something that other people that unfortunately, you know, Hashem gives them something very, very difficult that they have to go through should at least have some support to be there, whether it's helping them, connecting with the right places, whether it's helping them, you know, emotionally, whatever the need is. And that's where this whole thought and process came as far as you know organizing this organization medical.

[00:02:25]>> Okay. So, god forbid a family finds themselves in a situation where somebody in the family gets a terrible diagnosis and they're completely lost. They have no idea where to go, where to turn, who to talk to, who can help them, which treatments are worth pursuing, which ones aren't.

[00:02:41]How does how does a family find out about Kay Medical and how does Kay Medical get involved in their story? So, first of all, we don't advertise. I It's just not something we do. Go out and advertise in the public.

[00:02:54]>> So, it's just word of mouth.

[00:02:55]>> It's mostly word of mouth.

[00:02:57]>> And as an example, on my way walking here, someone called me that I happen to be taking care of his friend or whatever, and there's a family situation that just developed and can I help him?

[00:03:13]I said, "Sure. You know what's going on?" and he didn't even know exactly what the diagnosis is, but I'll be I'll be having it on my lock soon and you know, we'll try to figure out how to help this person and you know, going forward. So, as far as uh that type, so that's that's what we get all the time, you know, when people call us just word of mouth, but we do have an intake system. People know about us, whether they've had experiences in the ba in the past, whether they have family members that have dealt with us, whatever the situation is, they do have our number.

[00:03:43]And many people who have dealt with high medical in the past will not go anywhere else they first phone call any medical issue whether it's severe whether it's very serious or just you know minimal something and needs guidance they will put in a call to high medical we get upwards of 800 calls daily. Whoa. We help I think last year I'm not so into the numbers. I'm a medical coordinator.

[00:04:12]I'm not so into the details as far as you know all over but um well over 30,000 cases that we actually opened that does not include phone calls because many phone calls are just answered by in intake you know it's just a little thing and we'll just say you know how to deal with it but anything that's a little bit more it goes to a coordinator that's specialized within that subsp specialty and gets allocated as a case as a case open we had I know if I remember well was upwards of 30,000 cases that were opened by us last year.

[00:04:47]>> Last year?

[00:04:48]>> Yeah. Just in one year.

[00:04:49]>> Wow. Now, what do these cases look like?

[00:04:52]Are they all terminal illnesses or do you have people calling cuz you know child gets a cut on his face?

[00:04:58]>> Not all not all terminal illnesses. Most of them are not. And it'll be anything from you know a child was born with um some genetic issues. You know, we have a genetic department that knows how to deal with this. You know, people are lost. There's a kid born and there's something wrong with the child. We don't even know yet exactly what it is.

[00:05:18]There's a department here that deals with genetic issues. Kids that were born, something off, something wrong, minor, major, you know, we guide them there. Is there something that's, you know, just basic cardiac issues? Tons of calls like that. You know, people need guidance, need to see a cardiologist.

[00:05:35]They were told by their primary care physician they have some clogged arteries or there they have some, you know, tracheic cardia, whatever, whatever the issues are, they're being, you know, to be seen by a cardiologist or and same goes to all basic medical specialties. Um, gastrointestinal issues, that's, you know, huge.

[00:05:55]>> That's what they call GI. That's GI. So that's anything uh you know related pancreas, liver, stomach, uh you know all that type of stuff. And unfortunately in our community there's a lot of issues with inflammatory diseases like colitis and Crohn's. We have a full department for that. There are people that specialize that know these inflammatory diseases extremely well.

[00:06:19]They work with the doctors. they know the updated uh treatments, the updated trials and you know and that's an ongoing struggle. People that have this, it's an ongoing struggle and we have a team there to support these people both medically and with any type of other guidance that any diet whatever we're there to support them.

[00:06:39]So um and that goes across as I said you know all specialties if you go through whether it's neurology or OB/GYN or pediatrics complex pediatrics you know where we have a hospital division for people that are critically ill or we have people that that um deal with transfers. It's a person in a hospital that needs to be transferred to a different facility. many times, you know, you get locked up in different situations. You need to deal with it. We have people that know those things, know how to deal with it. And that's that's the the real benefit of of an organization like high medical, but we're not one specialty organization across the board. Many people, it's like a good hospital. We have departments, subsp specialties. Every person within medical has their specialty that they focus on. So I do mostly GI oncology, some other abdominal oncology, but that's about it. And many times I get phone calls from people saying, you know, can you help me with XYZ, leukemia, lymphoma, and I'll say, you know, that's not my specialty. I know the basics of it. There are people here that know this better.

[00:07:46]>> People within the organization >> within the organization that know this much better than me. And even though you know me, you should really be the only the people that know this disease properly. And that's how we work it. And the same thing as they get to call something, you know, it'll come to me.

[00:07:59]Every case is allocated to the right person that knows how to deal with this disease the best.

[00:08:07]>> Okay. What is your medical background?

[00:08:10]Like did you start off your professional career in this arena or what were you doing when you started?

[00:08:17]>> Absolutely not. I personally did not. I don't think anybody within the organization or very few. I I wouldn't say anybody. We have some professionals.

[00:08:24]We have some RNs working here. We have some people that have done, you know, medical profession before. Most people are people that have learned the trades on on their own, you know, being with family members that have gone through, you know, their own paria, whatever. And and they have the passion and they wanted to join an organization like this. Nobody comes in here to become rich. This is not the place for it. People come here because they have a passion to help other people and um most people have gone through some type of medical situation on their own and they have they're motivated to help other people.

[00:09:07]This all comes from Jebi Khan. you know, she founded this organization based on that vision, you know, that she went through and that's how most people that she brings into the organization are the people that have gone through their own situations and um have the passion and motivation to use it to help other people.

[00:09:28]>> When you say people who work in the organization are are those who've many of them have gone through something like this, is that true in your case?

[00:09:38]>> No. I didn't go through anything major.

[00:09:40]I've dealt with people, family and or friends. I always had a passion for this.

[00:09:45]>> I was the person kind of in that people knew that if someone that knew me had an issue, they used to call me and um you know, without going into something very personal, I was doing well as far as my own.

[00:10:00]>> Can I ask you what you were doing?

[00:10:02]>> I was in business, import export business.

[00:10:06]>> Okay. and some other things. Basham doing well. But I married my youngest daughter about five years ago. Bashem gave her children. Gave all my kids everything that they need. Everybody settled and it's my my personal decision that I decided to do something that's meaningful. And it was it wasn't even I didn't even have this in mind but it was something that I was think helping someone with something this person knew Mrs. Kahan and mentioned to her why don't you this person you know he may be good for your organization. She called me down for an interview. I said you know what I join for a few hours a day.

[00:10:51]Let me see. I quickly realized there's no few hours a day there. There aren't enough hours in the day to do this. You can do this and do something else. I kind of backed up from, you know, what I was doing full-time and um and made this my life, so to say. It's a 247 job.

[00:11:13]>> That's beautiful.

[00:11:15]What does a typical day in your life look like?

[00:11:20]>> So, I'll give you an example of a day like today.

[00:11:23]I never have to go back too far back. So this morning at 4:00 I was waking up. I was thinking that I put on the phone with a patient yesterday I don't know late in the day patient's not doing well u at a juncture where we have to decide what the right treatment for the patient would be whether to go for surgery if it's the right time to go for surgery or you know continue with some other treatments maybe push off the surgery. young man it needs, you know, we need we need to make a difficult decision and it needs to be biscat desire the right decision and I said before we make this decision with the doctor team that we're with now and it's a great doctor team there's another doctor team that I work very closely with and I wanted to see them and but you know I put down the phone with one patient I'm on to the next one unfortunately it's just an ongoing thing and um and I remind myself in the middle of the night that I need an appointment for this guy within the next 2 three days.

[00:12:28]Um, they usually see patients on Thursday. And I said, you know, I I need to they're going to make room for me, but not if it's uh, you know, it gets too late, >> right?

[00:12:36]>> So, I was up early morning before I usually get up early, but this was earlier than early. sat down on my computer, prepared the patient's um you know, recent reports, imaging, put it all together, sent it out to the doctors, and I think I think by 7:00, one of one of the teams, I copied a few of the doctors on the team. One of them answered me, must have been 7:00. I don't know exactly when it was >> in the morning.

[00:13:03]>> 7 o'clock in the morning. Sure, we'll see him. And um you know, copying the secretaries and the team there. Bottom line is the patient has an appointment for Thursday morning. So that's how the day starts and then you know of course I'm in touch with the patient and then just walking to the office. I was I was trying to think back this morning. It was just a very hectic chaotic day but um got a new patient during the day at some point called in newly diagnosed um unfortunately very serious case. I was busy with that. One of my colleagues called me with a different case that's not on demi but I wanted to discuss it.

[00:13:41]This is how we work it here. We have a so-called tumor board where sometimes we all get together and discuss. We always do that. We discuss complex cases. So that takes up certain amount of time almost every day when we have to talk nobody not always but in many situations we don't want to make decisions on our own. So even though I do GI ancology, we all know a little bit from each other and we like to discuss things.

[00:14:05]So that took up some time today. Um that just ongoing cases. I have another case that's very serious. Um a very young man that um unfortunately is progressing and we need to get him on a clinical trial.

[00:14:20]>> That means that the traditional >> traditional therapies are kind of wearing off. I don't like to wait till they're really worn off. Because at that point you don't have much time. You have to give yourself little time because usually when people go on clinical trials there's something called like a wash out period. It's usually a few weeks before you know when they finish their chemotherapy or whatever the system has to be clean and then they start on this new drug. So if the patient is really in bad shape at this point and progressing it's it's hard to take them off any treatments but yet it's hard to keep them on the treatments. I like to try to do these things as soon as I get a feel that this is going to be needed shortly. So what I do is again you know this is reaching out to multiple doctors multiple institutions that are running clinical trials and so in order to do that and to do it properly I gather all the information I go through this patient is going on already probably for four years. I go through from the beginning to end. Pick out all the important things, you know, all the diagn diagnostics, the treatments that he's gotten over the years and all of that. Put it all together. Beautiful timeline. I have a system. I do that.

[00:15:29]Prepare it. Then once it's all ready, it goes out to multiple teams that I have that I'm connected with both oncologists and um specific places that specialize in trials. I have some trial coordinators that I that I work with and knock on all the doors, try to get the best trial. It's not only trial. You can get a trial very easily. Unfortunately, most trials are worthless. They just they release a drug for phase one first in human thinking that if you target XYZ protein, you know, you may stop the cancer from progressing.

[00:16:03]Most cases, it's it's what we say.

[00:16:06]Most most of these things don't end up working out. And to send a patient to do that, a young man is very I don't want to do it. So we really try to focus on targets on on on specific trials even though they may mean new drugs but depending we sit here we evaluate each trial if it makes sense if it's targeting a target that we feel has been targeting in the past I don't want to get too technical but something that we think has potential so there's a good drug already and trial for that now there's another one coming up makes sense that this is going to work based on what we could gather best guess you know so those are typ trials that we target and um reach out to multiple institutions, see if they have what they have open, what they have available, what we can list for. So that's a lot of work. It's a lot of lot of work and it's hard to give over for someone else to do it to know what's important to include and how to word it and how to lay it out. I do have some people helping me out with that, but I still have to be involved in the details how to put it together. So that was something I was doing today for a particular case. It's hours of work um in in between taking phone calls going on with with you know new patients ongoing patients is just a constant ongoing thing. I was walking care I was on the phone with a doctor one of my patients developed a UTI which is not really something that I deal with but my patient I reached out to urologist and I said you know we just ran labs on this patient can do me a favor take a look at it and let me know what's going on. He called me back now at night and you know we discuss what the issues are and what to do. That all goes into a days of work.

[00:17:45]>> It sounds like a really uh really busy day.

[00:17:48]>> Yeah.

[00:17:49]>> Now how many teams does Kai Medical have um in terms of different departments or different illnesses that they deal with and what is the size of these teams or how many people are in the organization as at a whole? So we have probably in the range again I'm not good at the technicals the numbers because I know who I call I know who I work with but we have people within every like like you go into a hospital there's you know pediatrics OBGM gyn um neurology cardiology gastroenterenterology opthalmology orthopedics um you know you go through it. Oncology, we have like six, seven people working in oncology or maybe even more than that.

[00:18:37]Um, and then we have a big support staff. So besides the coordinators in any specialty, we cover every specialty.

[00:18:45]So, and even within oncology and cancer, everybody does their own. They may do two different two things, but everybody focuses on what they do, but yet we sometimes share so that everybody has some knowledge in in in everything. So we can cover for each other or discuss cases with each other so that we deal but across the board you know there's I don't know how many people that we have we have an intake department the people that answer the phone calls they're well trained people how to answer and and you know to know what's serious what's not what they can just you know discuss with the patient what needs to go urgently to a coordinator we have a system how when a case comes in it's marked as urgent those cases have to be called back and even though we're busy and we got multiple cases but ones marked urgent have to be looked at within an hour. Um and um so that's the intake. Then we have a tech department.

[00:19:39]Multiple women work in that office where they do tech. So if I, like I said before, I'm putting together a case that I'm going to send out to a doctor's many different reports that I need. They may not be available. There may be some of the imaging was done at an outside lab somewhere, an outside imaging place.

[00:19:58]They'll reach out. They know how to do that. Get the reports, get the actual images. We have a system how we upload it to us. And we have a system how we share it with this. I don't know that system. I just know that it's magic here. I put in my request to my tech department. And within, you know, no time, I have it all prepared for me.

[00:20:19]They have all the imaging that I need.

[00:20:20]They have all of that. anything that goes on, there's an issue with a patient getting into their portal or whatever, they have the magic how to make all of that work. So, there's a staff doing that. Is a staff doing insurance advocacy? People get stuck with insurance.

[00:20:35]>> Yeah. Does do all people who come into you have insurance?

[00:20:39]>> The majority do. Yeah. Both people do.

[00:20:42]They may have, you know, some of the state sponsored plans or whatever, but they have. And we figure out how to make those work in most cases. Occasionally, rarely, you know, we need to help a patient get insurance, but that's not it's not something that's very common nowadays because the state sponsored plans cover most of the things. It may not be in this institution. We may have to move around to another institution, but in general, it's okay. But the biggest issue with the insurance is the insurance many times now it's dealing with it today also. Patient call me certain type of scan. Insurance is not approving it. I know the spiel already.

[00:21:17]It's a more expensive scan. They'll say, "No, a regular CT scan is enough. We don't need that." And I've learned either you put up a fight, they don't approve it, you go for the regular CT scan. As long as the doctors work work along with you, you do the regular one, then you say it's not sufficient. We know up front it's not sufficient.

[00:21:35]There's something very specific that we need in that more enhanced scan. And the doctors write a note. I have the new one. I have a CT scan, but I need the enhanced one. And then they have no choice in approving. So those the kinds of things that we deal with them all the time. They just deny stuff and our insurance advocacy team knows how to, you know, the roundabout ways where to get to and how to try to push them to make it happen. People get very frustrated with this. I mean, the last thing a person needs to diagnose cancer is is insurance saying, "No, we're not going to pay for a pest." The doctor says we need it. You know, we need to see, you know, this disease, what's going on, exactly where it is, and all of that. We need it.

[00:22:15]>> Yeah. to get a full picture and they'll just and and and the patient can't deal with this. This they don't need this because so much aggravation and so much all of that. So, um we just uh take the those headaches we take away from the patient. We just tell the patient don't worry about it. We'll take care of it.

[00:22:34]You'll get your pesky.

[00:22:36]I imagine for people going through an experience like this, it can be incredibly frightening and lonely and confusing and it's really incredible that you guys are there for them. What are the list of services that Cayenne Medical provides to these patients? So let's say somebody calls in newly diagnosed with a terrible illness.

[00:22:57]Who's answering the phone? What's what's happening? Normally the first thing is a person calls in and and and the one thing I would say a lot of people that they get diagnosed and say I'm not going to tell anyone and they start doing their own thing. I many times that I get patients that have started and it's very important where you start out that you don't jump.

[00:23:23]Call someone that knows and understands.

[00:23:25]Have a conversation. know that you're doing the decision now and there's nothing wrong getting a scan or whatever but don't make any major decisions before you discuss it with people. So if a case comes into us we get a call and and a person calls in they were diagnosed with you know a terrible disease. So the first thing is and I would say most people bar hashem are treatable. Most people that come in they were diagnosed whatever the diseases in most cases the person will be cured than me as a >> they will survive >> in most cases. Yes.

[00:24:01]the cases that come in in more advanced stages. Those are the cases usually that come in not as advanced or at least you know it's in a situation where we can do surgery or we can do some type of treatment or whatever that's going to cure the patient. Many times the patient comes in and they're in an advanced stage. So that's when it becomes very tricky because um you really got to know what you're dealing with. You got to understand the disease, not just know the name and just the doctor that happens to treat that disease. We'll sit down, we'll go through, we're not going to make any decisions until we have the full picture. Full picture meaning nowadays a lot of tests that are done on specifically on cancer patients that were not available like 10 years ago.

[00:24:50]some very very subspecific um what they call molecular profiling on the disease which tells you what there are no two people that have they can have the same exact cancer two people can have pancreatic or colon cancer whatever it is you'll do the molecular profile on the tumors they're not going to be the same you have yet to see a patient that two have the exact same profile what I mean by profile is what is wrong with these cells that they're going wacko and they're, you know, procreating and and keep on going and causing the cancer to grow. So, everybody has what we call in this business different drivers. So, we've learned what those drivers are. We can't stop all of them, but at least we know many of them, many we don't. We see them. We don't know yet what they do, but many we know and recognize that they are drivers. They're driving this cancer. Some of them we have targeted drugs. You'll hear that work. Targeted therapies which specifically target.

[00:25:53]They may be good for this colon canceration. They're not been going to be good for the other one. So all those things are things that most people don't know and they don't need to know they don't know. But we know it. We live it.

[00:26:06]We study it. So when a person comes into us, we start going through the whole process. Was a proper profiling done? Do we have all this information? who's going to be the best doctor for this?

[00:26:17]Who will think a little bit more creative and out of the box than just go with, you know, doing standard of care and then when the options run out, uh, patient could be up against the wall.

[00:26:28]Who are those doctors that are a little more creative? They'll start with standard of care, but think about adding something in depending on the specific patient. So, we take all that into account when we review a case that has just come in. And we do this with the patient. We're on the phone with them.

[00:26:44]We make sure all the tests have gone through. We explain to them and first of all makes them feel much better. We never we're never we're never negative.

[00:26:53]That's the first thing because bam we've seen such good things with people that were doctors told them you know you have 6 months to live. I have patients like basham that are here three and a half years after doctor said six to 12 months. So you know I always tell the patients these numbers are meaningless.

[00:27:09]Stage one 2 3 4 it's all meaningless.

[00:27:13]to the we'll do what we need to do.

[00:27:14]We'll do the best that we can and you know I I'll never tell a person that you know we'll cure you but we'll do the best we can under the circumstances to make sure you give us the you get the best chance and the reason for that is also because there are so many new drugs coming out now so many new therapies not just drugs new types of therapies interventional type of therapies that yes if you can extend someone's life with a year or two then it's going to be another drug or another thing or something that we can hopefully come up that's going to be good for this patient and extend another year or two and we see these things. So that's why it's very important I explain these things to the patient. I don't go into all the detail but you know we walk them through this so at least they know there's someone there connected with the doctor connected with them. It's the easy part getting referrals. I mean, I call up a doctor in five minutes. I have the patient in. That's not a complicated thing. But making sure the patient gets to the right doctor and and the right treatment plan is designed. They understand what the plan is. They're on board. If they want to go to see another doctor to confirm or whatever, I'll always do that for them. Have a conversation, and then once you decide on the plan, we help them get it executed.

[00:28:29]It sounds like you're basically holding their hand through the entire process, guiding them towards the right care.

[00:28:36]Do you ever have people who are afraid to open up about what they're going through? Like people who who are, you know, because of for the fears for their privacy or they don't want people to know that they're not well, that they essentially refuse to get help or are very choosy with where they go for help.

[00:28:54]>> Yes. Yes. And it's a big problem. I'll tell you an example today. Someone called me came into our system as anonymous. Happens sometimes.

[00:29:04]Personally, >> what does that mean? How do you contact anonymous?

[00:29:06]>> There's a phone number there.

[00:29:07]>> Okay.

[00:29:07]>> But they didn't give a name. So, this was actually a relative, a brother to this man.

[00:29:15]And >> brother to the person who was ill, >> who was ill.

[00:29:18]>> Okay.

[00:29:18]>> Um, they didn't even give the right information when they called in. I started talking to him, figuring out what it is. They wanted one specific thing. if I can help him get a certain type of test that they were told. And so I started having this conversation with him. So then he opened up. I said to him, I don't care who you are, what you are. I said, I have there's so many people here that I know about nobody, not even their kids know that they're sick. I have many cases where I guide a person and they don't want to tell. It's not it's not the best thing in the world. I don't I don't think that's a good idea but whatever people want and many many times people ask us you know what do you think what is the right thing to do how do we go about with the children with parents and that type of thing you know we'll give them our opinion but if a person is adamant they don't want anybody to know nobody's going to know there's nothing going out from our place and we'll just guide them and walk them through this particular person is one of those cases where when I start to talk to them they're going through to a terrible illness on their own this brother is the only one that that he's talking to that he's taking advice from. He's by some doctor that I don't even know who that guy is and and I don't think and I asked him, you know, did they do this? Did they evaluate that? No, because he's like he doesn't think it's the right thing. The whole thing doesn't sound right to me. But it's not a good idea. It's not a good idea. You call someone that you feel comfortable with. get some advice and know feel comfortable that you're doing the right thing the right place and you know it should be the right but at least you should try your best you mentioned earlier um earlier you mentioned that in our communities you said GI is like a big a big thing a lot of issues there do you think there's something we as a community are doing that drives that or is it hereditary what do you think >> I I once heard a doctor giving a presentation on um you know people going for screening whatever the disease were was and they were giving a whole you know genetics family history.

[00:31:31]One of the lines was Ashkanazi heritage. Anybody from Ashkenazi heritage is at a higher risk of some type of German eye mutation. sometime of you know something within their DNA that may be mutated and for whatever reason that's how it is and some people we recognize it very quickly so if they would go for a genetic test we would see that they have a mutation and many times you won't see it but all of a sudden you'll see there's six people in the family unfortunately that are sick with you know cancers that we know run within the same genetic area and um you know there's something happening there. There's a family history. So it's unfortunately it's very common. So as far as GI gastrointestinal issues is very common within our community and specifically Crohn's disease, colitis and then there's a lot of data now showing that those people on occasion not a lot but there's a substantial percentage that unfortunately to transition later on to cancer. So the the people mostly are aware of this. They do very very frequent screening, you know, to make sure that it's they're taken care of. If anything shows up, you know, it's removed. But um it's unfortunately a major issue in general. In general, they just lowered the colon cancer screening guidelines from 50 to 45 um recently because even in in the non-Jewish world all over the place, it's just going up.

[00:33:08]young onset of of especially colorectile cancer has been climbing over the last few years like crazy and I always say our community we always have to if they're climbing we're climbing a little more than that so I always tell people is anybody in the family that has it go early doesn't matter just get it done >> are there any patterns you see within community behavior things that are perhaps unhealthy that you think should be reconsidered or done differently in order to avoid getting ill.

[00:33:41]>> Again, I'm not I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. But from what I can observe, I think and especially why there's so much gastrointestinal issues.

[00:33:51]I think it has a lot to do say a lot. You know, some of it is environmental, you know, where we live and but it does have something to do with how with our diets. There's no question about it.

[00:34:03]>> What we're eating >> what we're eating, no question about it.

[00:34:06]You know, we eat a lot more processed foods than our parents did. Especially all these snacks that we eat, all these spicy snacks and all that. Kids are stuffing on it has all kinds of junk in it. It's it's really unhealthy and and not necessary.

[00:34:22]>> Are there any specific guidelines you would give people to say, you know, like you want to stay out of our office, try to stick to these things?

[00:34:30]>> I would say as far as and there's organizations now that are going doing a good job at that. um encouraging people to go for the proper screenings, men, women, extremely important. I think people overlook that and and it saves a lot. I would say the majority of the cases that we get is because people didn't go do their screening properly.

[00:34:54]So, we'll get, you know, you get a 30 year old with colon cancer, unfortunately, you couldn't expect the person to go, you know, they weren't supposed to go. What age do you think people should start going for these kind of screenings?

[00:35:06]>> You know, at least follow guidelines.

[00:35:08]So, whatever the guidelines are, so you start 45 with the colonoscopy, you know, for women, whatever their their their guidelines are. But it's important at least to follow the guidelines. And I tell people if there's family history, young onset of cancer, go earlier.

[00:35:23]Whatever the guidelines are, take off 5, 10 years, just go earlier.

[00:35:26]>> And are these yearly scans that people should be doing?

[00:35:29]>> No, it's usually not yearly. Let's say colonoscopies usually if you have one and and it's mostly okay it's usually five years it's just when you start you get the first one if someone gets diagnosed by the 50 with a large colon mass it's been growing in there for a long time >> and if we would have had it 10 years ago it was a small polip would have been removed so you know we know this disease is prevalent in our community and I think people should be extremely aware of it and and go for screening it's not the most pleasant thing but it's Not complicated.

[00:36:02]Day in and out. It's done and you feel so much better. You know it's done. I have sometimes I had a person calling in. The guy was he called in our GI department and the person that was handling the case called me if I can please talk to this man. This man was panicking. He had some issue with his some stomach pains. He was convinced that he has cancer and he's dying. I said go do a no. scared to do coloss because he's going to find out that he's that it's true what he's dreaming about.

[00:36:34]>> I said, "Do me a favor. I can guarantee you you're not dying. Nobody needs you there right now. Just go do your screening." He calls me with the biggest s and I got him. I called the doctor. I said, "Do me a favor. Screen this guy.

[00:36:48]He's extremely anxious. He'll call you.

[00:36:51]Just, you know, walk him through it.

[00:36:52]Make it easy. Make it light." And uh so got him in and he called me a few days later. Ahm there was nothing there. I'm doing well or whatever. So people just have this anxiety about it and many people do and and and because of that they don't go.

[00:37:08]>> It's not going to help you. They're not going is not going to help you.

[00:37:10]>> Right. Well they say like you know you can't get high blood pressure if you never get tested. Right.

[00:37:14]>> Exactly. It's just going to put you at ease. So you may as well do it.

[00:37:18]>> Yeah. But people are afraid to know in case there's something wrong. But this is something most of these diseases and especially in colon cancer which is so common it can be prevented >> and I'm not saying again as I said unfortunately we get many cases of very young people that you say no it doesn't make sense they shouldn't have been they didn't need to be screened unfortunately but I'm talking about the 50 and 60 year olds most of these cases when they come in and they're advanced they could have been prevented if they would have done you know the 50 or the 45 or whatever done a screening so It's very very important. Don't push it off. It's very important. It's not complex. If you need a referral, you call us in. We set it up easily. Within a week, you'll have it done. And and and you be going on.

[00:38:05]>> Okay. Now, where do you operate? We're in the United States. Do you operate internationally? How does that work? If somebody from Israel has a problem, can you help them?

[00:38:14]>> We have many Israeli patients, but again, we're not an organization that helps within Israel. We're just not set up for that, you know, to help people, guide them locally. But we do have people that evaluate Israeli patients that call in that want to come to the United States. Now, a lot of people are say, "Yeah, I'm going to go to America."

[00:38:31]But is there something in America that is not available in ancestral? You know, is there something is it worth coming?

[00:38:37]So, in those cases, yes, we take in many times. I get cases to review and to see if I have any input if I think it's worthwhile for these people to come. So, yes, we deal with Israel all the time. I deal with London patients, England patients all the time, from around the world. Mexican patients, Panama patients, we have patients from around the world.

[00:38:55]>> Is there people who are coming here for treatments?

[00:38:57]>> Um, many do. But even locally, I'll get many times I'll get calls whether it's through community organizations that are there. They'll call us and say, you know, we have this patient here, a young mother that was just diagnosed with something. Is there someone there that can help us just to give us some input what we should do and how we should go about it? And we'll sometimes have someone there communicate with the doctors there and if we feel that they're not doing right, we'll try to connect them in a very respectful way.

[00:39:24]We'll say, you know, we have this great doctor here in New York. Would you mind having a conversation with them? I've done that many times before. So, yes, we help international patients many times.

[00:39:33]Um, but yet the majority is here, the United States, and the real majority is here in the tri-state area. So, um, but we cover it everywhere is the bottom line. Anybody that calls in, we're going to figure out a way to help them.

[00:39:48]>> That's beautiful.

[00:39:51]I know that unfortunately there are a lot of people who are going through periods of illness and I recently was talking to somebody who was struggling with a very um aggressive type of cancer and he was telling me that one of the most important things he feels for people to know about people who are suffering from cancer or other serious illnesses is that if the surroundings if the people around them are positive and are you know trying to give off a good outlook that things are going to work out properly proply it really helps them heal and vice versa. God forbid if person feels that there's no hope or even if even if uh medically speaking there are things that can be done. If a person on their own has given up then it's kind of over for them. They're not going to be able to fight through it. So I wanted to ask you if you have any stories that might be encouraging to others who are going through something like this.

[00:40:42]>> So I would say yes. It's very very important to to stay positive. That's one of the things as I said before which is something we do when a patient calls in. First thing we do and we're pretty honest. It's not like it's not like we're giving the the patient the madeup stories. We're pretty honest about it and we say listen we're going through this. It's going to be a struggle but meam you know there's light at the end of the tunnel but you have to be strong.

[00:41:07]I have this conversation with people all the time. You have to be strong. We'll walk you through it. It's not going to be a walk in the park, but you're going to go through it and it's hashem. You're going to come out and we're there to support them all along. And we talk to family if the patient lets us talk. I never reach out to anybody in the family that is not aware that I was not in touch that the patient told me it's okay to speak to.

[00:41:30]>> It's always very discreet.

[00:41:31]>> Always very discreet. I will never talk.

[00:41:33]And I've had many times with patient family members call in and say, "Were you taking care of my brother, my sister, whatever?" So I don't know. I always tell tell people you know if I know if I don't know I don't know and if I know I'm not going to say anything. So you know don't ask me.

[00:41:49]>> I have many times people calling you know about this one that's like I don't know. So the bottom line is I wouldn't talk. But if it's someone that's involved in this case let's say a husband a wife a child whatever it is we'll have these conversations saying that it's important to keep positive vibe. It really is important. It's not just, you know, this is not just that we think it is. It really is. Doctors are going to tell you it is because um it it it affects the person's overall well-being. If a person is down and depressed, they will not eat, they will not drink. You know, when a person's on these treatments, it's very very important. As is, you know, it causes people to lose some of appetite and whatever. And depression even you know just just aggravates that extremely important to try to keep as positive as possible and people sometimes will ask what do you think might be possible I think it's going to be I'm going to be alive you know what possible because if you're going to go on with the positive you're going to do the things right let's say exercise many studies have come out that it's as important as the drugs that people are taking for the treatments to exercise go out don't lay in bed and just lay back and let the disease is uh take control. Go out, walk, exercise, do what you need to do.

[00:43:08]Extremely important. There were major studies that came out over the last few years saying that literally exercise as important to the person's wellbeing. And it all fits into the same same thing because if a person is out exercising makes them feel better, makes their body feel better.

[00:43:24]>> So, but I just I want to get a clear understanding of that. You're talking about the exercise. You mean from a medical perspective the exercise fights the disease as much as the drugs do or from a mental perspective?

[00:43:34]>> So it's a combination. You know the bottom line is the studies have come out showing that people that are on chemotherapy and exercising have better overall survivals that people that are on chemotherapy and not exercising. What the reason is you know we can we can extrapolate now. It has to do with with um you know the mental part of it. It opens up the cells to absorb the the treatments better. Whatever the reasons are, it definitely helps. And I've had patients that I've, you know, I've encouraged to do that and and they always tell me that, you know, it makes them feel better and and and it's hard.

[00:44:11]>> It sounds like an awful experience under estimate what this disease does to people and how weak them, what the chemo does, >> but so we can't tell a person, yeah, just go out and run. They can't. It's hard on them. But we can encourage them.

[00:44:24]go out, take a walk, just walk around the block, get a friend walking around the block or that type of thing. And it's really, really helpful >> as somebody who is essentially living within a world that is constantly surrounded by the, you know, the talk of serious illness, sometimes death, this kind of thing. How do you personally stay positive? Do you ever feel like you're getting bogged down or overwhelmed by other people's problems?

[00:44:55]>> I would say yes. It's a struggle.

[00:44:59]Um that's why we always we have groups here amongst us. We always, you know, try to chat and and and keep positive. The thing that keeps us going, I always say and I say to my colleagues here, it's not that anybody's going to come and pat you on your back. not going to happen.

[00:45:17]It's not a thank you. It's not there.

[00:45:20]It's knowing coming home at night knowing you know we did what we did was very very hard but we got a person that's in a very very difficult situation. We we made their life a lot easier. That's what we take along with us and I think that's what gives us that's the only thing that gives us and it gives us a lot of physics. So yes, it gets you down, but at the same time, there's nothing in the world that gives you the satisfaction that this job gives you.

[00:45:50]>> Wow. I understand that in the next few days there's going to be a fundraising campaign to help Kai Medical continue with their work. What do you want people to know about Kai Medical that I may not have asked you? If you, you know, if you had to give like a elevator pitch to people about the organization, what do you want people to know? you know, with we're sitting in and and discussing, you know, the the benefits and all that.

[00:46:17]We're getting into a lot of the details, but overall when we started out, what I was saying is when people have any type of illness, people realize that they just don't know what to do. The medical system is extremely complex. When a person calls in here, it takes up it takes off so much pressure from their overall situation. We're there to help and we're there to help in many different ways to make a difference both emotionally, physically to help them out. Whatever their needs are, we're there to support them 24 hours a day. Any emergency situation, we have a 247 emergency line.

[00:46:59]anything anybody ever needs. There's nothing that's too big that we're not going to deal with. Not to say that we can do everything, but we will put effort into anything. And as our founder, Chevy, likes to say, we're an unstoppable bunch. And I sometimes marvel at the people here. Literally unstoppable. There's nothing. We have patients that have been in in the most difficult situations in ICUs and very complex situations. and we will check in you know once we get called and and see and we have people that can actually analyze the details of the situation the person is in and we are going to reach out and try to make a difference to the patient and the family that's there.

[00:47:42]So my pitch is it's an organization that since its founding has helped 150,000 Israel. It's a huge number and it goes on. As I said last year we had over 30,000 cases and we get in the range on average 800 calls a day. All this costs money. It's not easy. the people here, you know, work not for a lot of money, but for whatever they work, they need to get paid. Um, you know, we have the offices, we have the best equipment, we have whatever is needed to make a patient's life easier and better. And, um, we ask you, you know, for your support.

[00:48:29]>> Thank you very much. That's beautiful.

[00:48:30]And I appreciate everything the organization does and what you're doing personally. How does it feel to walk down the street and bump into somebody who you know probably their neighbors and family don't know but you know was once on the brink of death and has made it back made a comeback and is now enjoying their life again.

[00:48:49]>> I was going to say a story because it just happened. I just don't want to, you know, but this this happens often hashem and um just bumped into someone. Person didn't know that I was the one helping him.

[00:49:08]>> Oh, somebody you only spoke to on the phone.

[00:49:10]>> Spoke to many many times. Got this person through. Person didn't know who I am. Got this person through Bash. A very very difficult situation. He went into a hospital.

[00:49:22]upstate somewhere, got a terrible diagnosis.

[00:49:27]It was late at night one night when he had a scan there. Um, he knows someone that knows me. The doctors there told him, "You got to reach out to one of your organizations."

[00:49:38]>> The doctor sent to him. The doctor said to him, they know already when you know in in in the hospitals where there's Eden, you know, they know it's a situation where you need help and you should call one of you know like someone like high medical or whatever person knew me personally. I got this call. It was um Wednesday night, one late night or whatever it was towards the end of the week and um I still had doctors on the phone that night reviewing the imaging trying to figure out what we're talking about encouraging him that he'll be, you know, we'll do whatever he can. It's not the worst case scenario. Um ended up not being as bad as it looked like. Bam was something that we were able to help surgically. got him to see the doctor the next day. Within a week, he was he had the top doctors doing surgery on him. And I happened to meet him once with this guy that knows me and he introduced him to me and it was an amazing feeling.

[00:50:39]>> Wow. Sounds incredible.

[00:50:42]>> So yes, it does happen. And this is ask me how we go on. This is what this is our this is how we go on. This is what keeps us going.

[00:50:50]>> Amazing. Thank you very much for your time. I don't want to think too much of it.

[00:50:55]>> My pleasure.

[00:50:56]>> And uh hopefully we should only hear good news.

[00:50:58]>> Amen. Thank you.

[00:51:01]>> Thank you for being here. Thank you for watching and or listening to this episode. Of course, we want to thank Rabbi Freriedman for sharing his precious time with us to come on the podcast. And I want to remind you guys that medical is doing a campaign this week. They're doing a charity campaign.

[00:51:15]They're trying to raise money to help them continue with their life-saving efforts. So, if you would like to contribute to the CIA medical campaign, please go to charity.com/heim.

[00:51:25]That's ch a r i dy.com/ch aim.

[00:51:31]Of course, you can donate over there and please tell your friends about it. Thank you all for your support. I'm going to put a link up here in the video screen as well as down below in the description. So, once again, please open your hearts and your minds and your wallets. Donate generously. Thank you for being here and have a wonderful