From Scapel to Screenplay: Your Current Chapter Isn’t Your Whole Story with Urologist, Filmmaker, Author Dr. George Ellis

Our guest today on Cancer Comedy is Dr. George F. Ellis. He is an American physician and urologic surgeon. He's also a writer and a filmmaker. He's performed 1000s of urologic procedures that are published in many journals and scientific literature. And he also worked with the underinsured as a volunteer. And right now, he's involved with making movies appearing at various film festivals and is the author of the upcoming book A Surgical Approach to culinary arts along with his son who is so welcome to our podcast conversation today. Dr. George Ellis.

Yes, thank you for having me.

You got a bit of an interesting and fascinating a little bit of collective story. Well,

something that's happened to me recently would be in the past, about a year ago, I was in the mountains with my son in Colorado, he lives in Denver, and we were hiking, we were about 7000 feet. And I said, what would I want to do if I want to do something big than just and I said, I've always been in somehow in making movies, either for public health messages that we've done, or some promotional videos we've done for the hospital, my, my first experience was as an extra and a couple of movies when I was in medical school. So, I said, I'm going to start making movies. And I started this company, Coronado Beach Productions. And I was in a room of directors. And one of the things I noticed was that a lot of people had ideas and things they wanted to do in film, they just didn't have the funding. And I said, you know what I can do, I can start doing this kind of work, and then eventually help others fund their wishes and dreams in the film world. And I think that would make a lot of people happy, because those budding filmmakers will have an opportunity to actually make their film. So that's what's happened. I funded my own movies. But I'm now involved with two different projects, one that's ongoing now called the 12 miles, which is more of a horror movie, you can go to the 12 mile.com to see that.

Yeah, sounds you've and sounds that's been a labor of love and labor of joy for you and a bit of a twist and turn over your background of careers or as a as a neurologist, it seems to me. So, what kind of led to this story about how did you end up into urology and dealing with, you know, kind of severe things that people deal with to the film world and eventually becoming an author Tell me a little bit that how that journey navigated for you.

So, when I was in medical school, and then mostly as a resident in training in Syracuse, and then the background of film and wanting to do film and being involved with the media, that was always of interest to me. So, I wrote some book chapters with some other doctors and attorneys, then things kind of changed. I was very busy with my practice; I was doing a lot of trauma and emergency room work. And so that gives you very little time to dedicate to other things. So, when I was heading towards retirement a few years ago, I was thinking, well, maybe I should do something creative. And so, like I said, a year ago, I started thinking about films. And I said, well, this is where I'm going now, I'm going to do this. And so here we are.

well, kind of interesting. And that obviously I could just tell by you know, looking at you and video here you got a big smile on your face. And you seem a guy who when you made the turn at retirement, you lean to do you know you came out of pretty intense work is as an MD as a doctor of urology and dealing with, you know, where we talk about medicals procedures in cancer, I'm sure you've dealt with prostate cancer and other things like that in your career, some pretty serious stuff, to something that you really enjoy, and it still is a benefit to others. And then you also have this part of your life where you still volunteer your medical skills to be helpful to people who are underserved or underinsured and things like that.

So, I started doing volunteer work probably 24 years ago, and I was helping the county with a situation that occurred where some of the local emergency rooms were shutting down. And so, the few emergency rooms that were left were getting flooded with a lot of patients, and some of them were patients who were uninsured who had no primary care. So, they were coming to the emergency room with so I helped the county create clinics around Orange County, which is where Orlando's located, so that we could have a primary care access for those patients who didn't have any insurance. And a lot of these facilities were either free or you know, sort of on a sliding scale of how much money they'd have to pay based on their income. And so, I always said to myself, while you're volunteering, you can always Even when you retire, continue to do the volunteer work, because that continues to help people and one, people are so grateful. And two, there's no insurance work, there's no paperwork, there's no approvals, referrals, all those things that in a regular practice have become standard in medical practice.

And then you are able to basically give something back, that kind of cuts through a lot of that stuff and gets to the heart of the matter, which is healing, right healing process.

That's exactly right. And, you know, a lot of patients that I see they have a variety of different conditions like urinary tract infections, kidney stones, prostate issues. And under normal circumstances, it's hard for them just to see a regular doctor, sure, because the socio-economic conditions, much less see a specialist like myself. And at the time, 20, some odd years ago, I was able to recruit some of my colleagues, to join the volunteer effort in helping some of these folks who, you know, had difficulty in accessing care, and how we serve those folks. And I got to tell you, everybody tells me that those patients that they treat, or that I treat, they're so happy with the opportunity to be able to have treatment. And we give them surveys to fill out very brief surveys, you know, they're happy they can see some kind of a doctor.

Tell us a personal story, if you will, about a person that you encountered in this treatment process, who may have come into the process, you know, kind of beat up by the world and beat a lot of these folks who have had difficulties and all kinds of ways not just medical, right, but I'd like to hear a story, if you will, about somebody that you were able to see or treat or be a part of their life. And kind of the before and after, whatever problem they had, whatever the urological issue they had a two-year-old are treated medically, but how they may have come out the other side a little better place can do you have a story like that?

Yeah, I do. I saw a patient a couple of weeks ago. And she had a condition where she had a lot of irritation in her bladder. And she also had some blood in her bladder that kept coming up on her urine tests. So, we did a full investigation with CT scans and ultrasound. And then I did something called a cystoscopy, which is where we look inside the bladder with a scope. And I didn't find anything of any severity, no stones, no issues like that. But what I did find is that she had this chronic sort of small amount of blood in her urine, with no known cause. And some people have that. It's called benign hematuria, which is a small amount of blood. And I was able to treat her with some medication that she had never been on. And when I saw her last time, which was probably the third or fourth time I saw her, she was so happy that finally she was relieved of the symptoms of, you know, sort of the same symptoms you have when you have a urinary infection, that that irritation that that's frequency like you always have to go. And finally, she got relief from that. And so that was that was a good thing for her.

That is awesome. I love to hear stories like Ed because really what we're all about here on our podcast is about life transformation, for kind of kind of the grim things that happened to us, we like to call it going from the ground to the ground, you know, and, and you have this vibe Abacha George have not only wanted to see transformation kind of medically, but you saw her emotional countenance change as well into I'm a prostate cancer patient and I had served prostrate surgery of prostate cancer surgery just about a little less than a year ago. And so that's part of my life. And but I had that will happen to me right after I retired. And so that kind of led me to do in life as a pastor before that, pretty involved with it. And now I'm involved with this, this is my entertainment thing that I do try to give back, you come from the perspective of the doctor, who's still volunteering, and your medical field, but you're also getting into the film work and so on. What I'd like to talk about is the kind of the where those two of those worlds’ cross paths for men and where they intersect. What do you think is the relationship and your experience about things such as a good attitude or good humor or a mental health issue in terms of its relationship to medical issues? And also, its relationship towards, you know, having good outcomes? Can you speak a little bit about that?

Yeah, I think that one of the things you just mentioned was the intersection between those processes. And I think the intersection right there is called service to others. And where we want to serve other people, we have a calling to do that. Obviously, you've had that and you've done that. Most of your life. And of course, as doctors we do, we do the same thing. But one of the things I've noticed in my medical career is that those people who have a good attitude usually fare better in healing in their approach to their treatment, and compliance to their treatment and taking medication. And in this particular example, that I just gave you, I could tell that this patient was going to do okay, because after I finished her procedure, she was almost halfway there. I told her, I didn't find anything serious. Everything seemed to be in order. But she was having these symptoms. And she wanted some relief. And I could tell with her, her smile, that she was hopeful she had hope. And, and that's what she was looking for. So, when I prescribed the medication, and she came back to see me, and I said, How's everything? And she said, Oh, much, much better. And there's your answer. That's, that's what it's about. And

I think that comes back the other way, too, doesn't it? George, where it help you to as the doctor and to be affirmed? And that, and I'm sure there's doc medical doctors and other folks who have some have a good attitude, and some don't when they go into things, and sometimes they get bogged down with all the administrative nonsense, and but did you see that difference to when you get that feedback from a patient that helps you to in terms of wanting to keep giving back? Does that help?

What it does it gives you motivation to either continue what you're doing, or if you get to a point where things are a challenge, you know, we have challenging patients sometimes, you know, we don't quite know what the answer is, sometimes we need another specialist to kind of, you know, take another look. So, all that makes us feel like, we got to get to the goal. And the goal is to give people hope, and, and relieve them of their situation. So, they can move on with their life, you know, with their work with their family. And, and that's, that's the big thing that that I get is that if I could help somebody, I want to do that. I want to figure out everywhere I can do that.

a golfer who hopes it's a good thing. Because really, whether it's medical challenges, or when you deal with underinsured, there's got to be financial challenges, other things like that you can deal with some pretty, you know, when you deal with bad news, especially medically, it can knock you rocky Becker, he was number one I met with my, when the first meetings I have with my urologist of more than a year ago now, he was super nice guy. And I really liked him a lot. But he says he, you know, you've got, you've got prostate cancer, and that means impotence and incontinence. It means that you, if you don't do something about it, your life is going to be cut short or likely. And those are pretty heavy things to deal with. Because that deals with your self-esteem, it deals with your life, it deals with your marriage and all kinds of other things. And you're doing some heavy, heavy stuff. And you're trying to navigate that, as you know, the medical part, but also offer hope. Can you give us some tangible ways that maybe our audience might see hope, by see hope, or might see a light at the, in the midst of those kind of those dark places when that when you I'm sure you've been in that place where you've had to give somebody bad news. You know, if you tell a story, they got prostate cancer, that's not good news. But I want you to Could you speak to this a little bit how, what you from your perspective, how you can offer little hope to people even or dealing with some really dire situations?

Yeah, recently, I saw a T V show. And it was it was a there was a medical situation. And the person was given, like really bad news. And it was a terminal condition. And the doctor said to the patient, after he gave him the speech, he said I'm sorry. And I said, I never say I'm sorry, to a patient, because it's like, you're already feel defeated. Right? Because it doesn't feel good to say, Oh, here's some bad news. And now I'm sorry about it. So, for me, I always want the patient to be informed about everything. So, all the treatment options, you know, what's, what is the condition, and for example, in prostate cancer, you've probably heard the term active surveillance. And so that that came from the fact that, you know, we were doing so much surgery and with the complications you just described, you know, was there another way for certain patients that we could manage them? I would say that at this point, giving people their information and making sure they are informed, even if it is potentially a terminal condition. They want to know you know; they want to know if you know. They have to have all their affairs in order if you know all the things that could happen. So, I think that the information and you know, I'm never opposed to people going on the internet to looking at things, and coming back and telling me I found this and this and this. And then I will tell them, well, this information is accurate. And this is it. I'm sorry, I'm not so accurate. So, I think the information that they get at the decision that they make thereafter, is essential. Yeah.

And I think part of our goal here with this, George has to do with relationship between the patient and the doc and other people involved. You know, as a pastor, I've been at the bedside of many people, it makes a big difference what that Doc says at that seminal moment, you know, you give the bad news. But if the buck if the doc says, I'm sorry, I walk out the door, that's a big difference that the doc says, okay, here's the bad news. Here are some options of what we can do about it. And you know, what, what is what's next steps that that type of thing? I've just wondered, out of your own experience, if you have seen it. Or is there any training that goes along for MDS regarding how to handle the interpersonal part of things, you know, that bedside manner that they call it things like that, is there any observations you might have about that.

I would say today, there is more focus on the approach that you have with a patient. And that comes from working in the hospital as a medical student, working in the hospital as a resident in trading. And you're always learning from other doctors, especially the ones who have been in practice for a while, as to how you approach it. Now, I'll tell you that 40 years ago, there wasn't as much training because it was more like you have a patient that have a condition, you diagnose it, you give them medicine, or the same thing. They have a diagnosis, you do surgery, and that kind of thing. The whole I don't want to say human part, it was hard. You know, there was there was a time years ago, when if a patient was given a cancer diagnosis, the family was informed, and the patient was not. Oh my gosh, wow. And I always thought that, why was that but that was the way it was in those days. They didn't want the patient to be frightened. So, they tell the family. And then now they're kind of, you know, family’s kind of stuck and telling. Well, what do I tell him?

Yeah, that's not fair, either. Is it? fair or not? Was it? It was a different? It was a different time? Yeah, indeed. And well, I, I've experienced some of that in my life, especially early in my career. Let's begin to see what you're doing now. Do you see how filmmaking and now as an author of a book, and I want to talk about your book here in a minute, especially in terms of diet and cancer, and things like that? But do you see filmmaking as an expression of offering people hope as well, offering people some entertainment or something to put either thrill, a smile, or a laugh? Or a, you know, transformational moment? But do you see any correlation now between the entertainment world and the healing world, any correlation?

Well, filmmaking is telling a story, okay? It's all the same thing. There's some story. And sometimes by telling the story, you put the person in another world that's outside of their world, and they enter somebody else's situation, it could be something very good, it could be something, you know, like a horror movie could be a love story. And, and it could be a documentary where they're getting some information. And so, for, you know, the 510 30 minutes, you know, 90 minutes of the movie, they're transported into a different world, and they get a different perspective on what they're, they're living and could sort of sometimes get some parallel with some of the things that they're dealing with and trying to resolve those things as they move forward

you will watch a movie and they say something to the effect of I kind of got lost in it or absorbed in it. As you say, I think he said something offensive transported you into that, and then helps it certainly can be for someone who's deals with you know, cancer or other things like it can be a distraction as well. I know. I like to watch comedic TV shows and movies and things like that, just to make you laugh for a minute or so that sounds like a little bit what you're working on there with you with your production company, help people to maybe be a bit of a bit of a distraction. But what do you find it right now about filmmaking? That's feeding your soul

When you look at a movie, I'll give you a little secret. There's sometimes a trailer that that kind of gives you a preview. The trailer and the beginning of the movie are what we call the hook. That's going to hook you to keep watching in the movie, and once you've got, once you've been hooked, the rest of the story is going to keep you entertained. And so, for me, my, I guess my pleasure is being able to find the hook, whether it's the trailer or the beginning of the movie, or both, so that people continue to be interested to watch the rest of it. Now, one of the movies, the first movie I did, which has won several awards, is just a five-minute independent short movie. And so that doesn't take a lot of time to watch a movie for five minutes. But when you get into more longer movies and feature films, you really got to make sure you've got the hook that keeps people interested. And there's positive feedback. That's, of course, you know, very rewarding.

And recently, you've been able to do something that I understand is pretty rewarding for you, you're working with your son, and you've written a book. And there is a real interesting, kind of a curveball, if you will, in terms of understanding your life and your son's life and how it relates to cooking and other things as well. So, I don't want to give away too much you tell us the name of the book and how it came about that you and your son came to write this book.

Well, my son is also a certified nursing assistant. And that's like a license for admission. It tells your son's name Adam had okay. Yeah. Adam, Adam, George from the Adam George. And, and so he helped me in my office for several years, he was assisting me with some procedures. And I think her kind of saw that as something that he could do with his hands. And so, he got a job at a at a local store that does a lot of beef and a lot of specialty foods. And he started learning how to cut me. And at a certain point, maybe he was a year into it. He said to me, I cut meat like a surgeon, because I worked with you in the office. And so, I said, okay, that's good. And then that's what it clicked, I said, he's cutting meat, I cut, you know, for surgery, there's, there are some panels there. And then there are some different sizes. So those are the things that we bring out in the book. And we also have some recipes in there. And my mother was French, so I learned a lot of cooking from her. But he learned a lot of cooking from his job. And one Christmas, he bought me a smoker. So, I learned how to smoke meat. And he does well as far as grilling food. And obviously, he knows all the different cuts and everything. So, it's been it's been a constant work in progress.

Well as the title of the book is A Surgical Approach to Culinary Arts. But is this an actual cookbook? Or is it something else? How this is going to benefit our audience here or other audience?

Yeah, as a book with recipes that will help people to look at, you know, how many of what ingredients go into a certain recipe. But it also gives us a little bit of perspective of a journey. myself as a doctor and my son as a meat cutter, sort of lived in parallel worlds that sometimes came together and ultimately came together in this book, a lot of the diagrams that are in the book are about anatomy of the of the cow, and the different cuts of meat, like, you know, the Delmonico and the strip. And so, he made some very nice diagrams that will be included in the book. So, I think it's an it's a well-rounded approach. But I have to tell you where the title came from. Okay, please. So, when I was in in residency, one of my colleagues, who was a surgeon also, he, he went up to Mount Everest three times, oh, my goodness, wow. And he gave us a talk once amongst all the surgeons, and it was called a surgical approach to Mount Everest, and I never forgot that title. And I said to myself, I put that together. And I said, this is great. The surgical approach is what I do. But the Culinary Arts is what my son Adam does. So that's how all that came together.

And I think there may be some correlation even to some of the health-conscious health aspects we've been talking about a little bit that we, you know, we're I'm not a nutritionist, but I do kind of follow a Keto approach to my own diet. I'm a meat eater, and in that regard. And do you think there is some correlation or some benefit to people in terms of, you know, dealing with their health is will there be some things there that would at least be helpful to people health-wise?

Yes, because in most of the recipes that we've written, some of them we've written the standard way. So, for example, in a French recipe, they're going to use a lot of cream, a lot of butter, you know, a lot of things that may not necessarily be healthy for someone who has cholesterol issues. So, we've written some alternatives to those ingredients that people can use, that still make the dish flavorful. But in a healthier manner, if they're focused on a healthy approach to making that particular recipe.

when people have a profound health issue, at least for me, and I think many people, that also becomes a life transition moment, you know, for, for everything, including your diet, certainly with myself, you know, when I was diagnosed with cancer, that was also a reminder about I've diabetic and so on, about my own health. And so, I changed a lot of my health habits had huge improvements on my diabetes, and some other things like that, because I changed my eating patterns, and exercise, you know, almost every day and that kind of thing, some things I didn't do before. So, there's such, what I'm getting at here is what we're talking about here, George has to do with the actions people can take to change their life, you changed your life when you retired, and you decided to go kind of in a, you know, a little different approach. You know, a lot of Doc when they retire, go play golf, right. And that's cool. Another one was booth golf, but you went off into filmmaking and writing a book and so on. And you seem to be very delighted with that. We talked about the transitions you made with some of your patients, especially so that people are underinsured, and so on where they, you were able to navigate some difficult circumstances and to have life transitions there, you talked about your son, being involved with his life in terms of kind of coordinate with you. And maybe many people may say, well, following your dad's footsteps here and go on to become a doctor, he had some training in that, but it led him in a little different path. And you converge back together here in this area here. And I think there's some value in understanding the value and transition to take place and kind of pursuing a dream pursuing a new, new walk of life.

First of all, what you said is exactly accurate. That's the summary. As we could put it, but the value is, you know, I have a philosophy that I don't want to end up at a certain point where I have anything that I say, Gee, I wish I had done that. I don't want to get to that. So, for me, I've said to myself, if you meaning me, if I want to do something, I got to go off and do it. If I if I want to take a trip, I've got to do it. If I want to try a restaurant, I've got to do it. Because you know, you know, as well as I do, you know, we're not here forever, and who want to be able to enjoy what we have. And if we can benefit our fellow man. Isn't that what it's all about?

Absolutely. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, let's have one I want to frame our conversation, I began our conversation and say, What kind of smile on your face? And I want to kind of conclude it this way. Are there any experiences that you had in practice or in your life, that just kind of struck you funny, you know, we call this the cancer and comedy show, but it just struck you funny. To give you an example, when, for me, when I was recovering from my cancer surgery, I had a catheter for a couple of weeks, and my dog got, who was older dog got confused and got somehow tangled up in my catheter line. And I had to follow my dog around for a little bit if you know what I mean. It was it was painful, but Heute funny as heck seen. I just wonder Do you have anything in your life or experiences that just kind of struck you fun?

Well, I'll tell you, I think there's a lot of moments that we have that are funny. You talk about a catheter, some people do interesting things, you know, they have very finite instructions as to how to handle it. And, you know, they come back to have their catheter removed. And you find strange things on the catheter. Or, or the catheter, you know, is plugged up, and now their bladder is full, and they're not sure why it's draining around the catheter, which was due. And then you realize, well, the catheter is clogged, but they never bothered to say anything. And so, I think, I think that that's kind of interesting. One of the things that was that was funny is that when I was in the hospital, I had a patient we have this bladder irrigation system. So, it's a catheter, and then there's fluid that goes in one way and it comes out another way. And I went to visit the patient in the morning. And it had been rigged up in a way that made absolutely no sense. So, the outflow was used for the inflow. And the inflow had had nothing on it. So, it's not designed to work that way. And I, you know, fortunately, it was time for that catheter to come out. And so, it's like, okay, so we won't even deal with this anymore. Because, you know, to me, it's like, you know, obviously it was, you know, somebody in the hospital who was tending to that patient That wasn't quite familiar with the system, which, you know, that's the way it works sometimes.

Sure. What is one more thing, what would be your word, you know, a kind of encouragement to someone out there who may be dealing with whatever it is. So, they've mentor, their urologist, and they've had bad news of some sort cancer or whatever it would be, what B, we're kind of your closing words for our conversation of encouragement to that person to get him through.

I would say recruit a support group, it may be your family, it may be friends, or both. So, recruit people to help you through this, by get informed, get informed about what is happening, why it's happening. And I have some patients who almost end up knowing as much as I do, because they study it. And they really research the whole process, were

George been a fascinating guest, thank you for that great word of encouragement that we love to hear that that's what this pack is really all about is trying to offer a different light. You know, you talk about you, your, your book, surgical approach to culinary arts being kind of different sides of things. So, people say yeah, what do you call your podcast, cancer and comedy? Well, we want to try to see the kind of there's a grim part of life. And there's a, you know, an uplifting part of life. And you certainly have embodied that in our conversation here today. So how can people if people want to reach out to you and find out more about what you were involved with? Either your book or your, your, your endeavors in filmmaking? How can people be in contact with you George.

The name of the company, which is Coronado Beach Productions. You can find the information, you can find trailers to my movies, some of the videos that I've done, you could find the latest things that that I've done, you can see some of the awards that my films have earned. And you know, you can get educated about what I'm doing and hopefully you'll follow and subscribe to my channels.

Absolutely. We'll put connections and links to everything. You're about Dr. George Ellis at our website, cancerandcomedy.com. His book will be a surgical approach to culinary arts, Dr. George F. Ellis and he co-wrote Andrew along with his son Adam Ellis, MD, our special guest here today on the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr. Brad Miller.