Gan Dunnington, MD
Episode 195

Narrator:

Welcome friends to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. Join your host, Japhet De Oliveira with his guest today and discover the moments that shape us, our families and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Hey. Welcome, friends, to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. I'm here at Adventist Health St. Helena. It's a beautiful, bright blue sky, and I'm excited with our guest. If you're brand new for the podcast, we have 100 questions. They're about stories and experiences that shape this person into the leader that they are today. I'm going to ask the first 10, and then they're going to pick numbers after that. So, let me begin with the first one. Could you tell us your name? Does anybody ever mispronounce it?

Gan Dunnington:

That's a great question right out of the gate. Yeah. So, my given name is Gansevoort Hurlbut Dunnington Jr.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow. Gansevoort?

Gan Dunnington:

Gansevoort.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Gansevoort.

Gan Dunnington:

Actually, there's a hotel in New York named the Hotel Gansevoort. I wish I was affiliated, but I'm not. I've got a bunch of last names strung together. I've got a page turner book at home called The Gansevoorts of Albany, a Dutch name that came into the 1630s.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really?

Gan Dunnington:

The first Gansevoort was a brewer. The Dutch people like to sue each other a lot, and he would lose a keg of beer in various lawsuits. The funny thing is, the third Gansevoort was a doctor in the 1690s, which at that point, you could pretty much put leeches on people, make them throw up a little bit.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Still do today, right?

Gan Dunnington:

Balance the humors. But no, I go by Gan.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Gan.

Gan Dunnington:

Right? So it's like Dan with a G.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Now, when this appointment came up in my calendar and we were working it out, I noticed that your name and your email don't seem to match up.

Gan Dunnington:

It's a weird IT snafu that's never quite... Apparently, it's so complex. It's challenging for people to figure. But yeah, if you look at my name that comes up on my email, it's Dun Dunnington. So, every now and then I will get a Dun. Hello, Dun. That's how I know somebody really doesn't know-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Doesn't know you.

Gan Dunnington:

... me at all.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Great.

Gan Dunnington:

It's a nice little weed out.

Japhet De Oliveira:

They're pitching something.

Gan Dunnington:

Exactly. I don't know why it's been such a stumper, but I've just gone with it and I'm okay being-

Japhet De Oliveira:

So now you just go by that. No, I'll call you Gan.

Gan Dunnington:

I have my work persona and then I have my real world persona. No, I think you should call me Gan.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Gan will do. All right. Gan, what do you do for work?

Gan Dunnington:

So I'm a cardiothoracic surgeon, so working here in St. Helena and I do pretty much everything in the chest, right? So cardiac surgery, thoracic surgery, but I also do a fair amount of vascular surgery. So, anything I should say in the chest or with the blood vessels. In training, I learned general surgery and I'm boarded in general surgery and then went through a cardiothoracic fellowship. And one of the things I love about working up here is that while we are a relatively smaller hospital and a somewhat sophisticated rural community, I would say-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes, you are.

Gan Dunnington:

... we don't have an overwhelming number of specialists that could cover cardiac and then a separate guy for thoracic and a separate guy for vascular. And so because I never stopped doing those things and I've been in practice for 15 years, I just kept going with it while some people... When I was working my first job at Stanford, I loved it. It was great. But they want everyone to be a left earlobe surgeon. Oh, if you want to operate in the right earlobe, no, we got another guy for that.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, super specialization, right?

Gan Dunnington:

So when I moved up here, just more interesting for me to have a diversified practice to be able to do all these different things.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's beautiful, but you love the community as well.

Gan Dunnington:

Oh, of course. I have often joked that if the hospital burned down, I might just start picking grapes because I did actually move up here because my wife and I loved the area. I didn't know at the time how sophisticated the medical staff was at this hospital and the history of the hospital. So, that was a pleasant surprise. And honestly, people that work at this hospital work here because they love being here. They love the people, they love the community, they love the area because let's be honest, it doesn't always pay the most.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's true.

Gan Dunnington:

And we lose an occasional person that goes off to work for maybe a Kaiser or something like that. And frankly, somebody that's mostly coin operated isn't necessarily who you want to work with anyway and it's impressive how many people have come back. They go off to go work at another hospital system, maybe in another town. They think, "Oh, I'm going to make a few more bucks an hour." They come back because they realize what they lost.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, you guys, I get the feeling. I mean, every time I come up to St. Helena and I meet all of the associates here and the clinicians, you love each other. You care for each other.

Gan Dunnington:

It is a pretty tight-knit family.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, it's fantastic. That's great. It's great. Now where were you born?

Gan Dunnington:

Richmond, Virginia.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Okay, all right. Did you grow up there?

Gan Dunnington:

For a long time, I thought that was the center of the universe and my very few of my friends and colleagues have left Richmond, Virginia. So, I feel very fortunate. I love Virginia. I have a lot of nostalgia when I go back there. But what happened is where I grew up, I went through K through 12 and left there as an 18-year-old, went to Duke for undergrad. I met my wife, future wife, and she's the California girl.

So, we met very early, maybe a month or so into college, and we got engaged senior year, got married shortly thereafter. And then we were just back and forth across the country a lot for medical school and residency and whatnot. But in the end, we had to make our decision, were we going to be Virginians? Are we going to be Californians? And I think I mentioned she was the California girl. So, here we are.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I see that you won.

Gan Dunnington:

I actually really, really did. I bamboozled her into this whole deal.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Hey, that's fantastic. So, when you grew up as a child out there, what did you imagine when you grew up to be?

Gan Dunnington:

So both my parents were physicians. My dad was a cardiologist, interventional cardiologist, and my mom was a nephrologist, a kidney doctor. And it was fascinating. My mom's passed away now, but growing up, they had a lot of doctor friends and doctors would come over. I can't even tell you how many times some doctor would tell me, "You know what? Your mother's the smartest doctor I've ever known."

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Gan Dunnington:

And that always struck me because I think about it now, who's the smartest doctor I know? And it doesn't just roll off the tongue. I don't exactly know. I know a lot of really smart doctors, but that was impressive for me to hear as a kid. But I got to see the lifestyle and probably just went along with what I thought was expected. But with that said, I have two brothers and two sisters and none of them went into medicine at all. But I worked my way through the path and honestly the biggest earliest divergence from what my parents would've wanted for me was to go to surgery.

Here we have a couple internists and they're like probably proud of me. I went to medical school and then I just saw their bodies slink, their eyes drop. He's going to be a surgeon, but Ganny, the surgeons aren't the smart doctors. I said, "Well, mom and dad, I'll be able to do everything you can do and operate." So it was not exactly the most rebellious maneuver.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I'll use my left hand, instead of my right.

Gan Dunnington:

Which is another funny thing because my mom was left-handed and the only left-hander in the family and it always really seemed to bother her.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's great.

Gan Dunnington:

I think my mom would've been a surgeon. I think she would've been a great surgeon. She always said she loved working with the surgeons, and as a nephrologist, oftentimes you do and have to help from access and whatnot. But she told me, "Yeah, I just don't have the hands," which I was always sad for her. I think she didn't give herself an opportunity to even think about it. But you got to remember, this is a long time ago. If she were alive, she'd be in her 80s now and she was only one of a small handful of women in her medical school.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's true.

Gan Dunnington:

And I think she was at the top of the class. So, I got to hear about that a lot also.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, kudos to her. I'm sorry she's gone, but she clearly left a great legacy in your life.

Gan Dunnington:

Absolutely. No, she was a wonderful woman.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Hey, that's fantastic. Now, are you an early riser or late night owl?

Gan Dunnington:

I like it all to be honest. I will say that my favorite times are the times where everybody else is asleep.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's magical.

Gan Dunnington:

I mean I tend to get up in the 5:00 to 5:30 range. There's nothing particularly special about that, but I do love that first hour of the day where it's a quiet, I can have coffee, I can reflect, think about what's going to happen in the day. But I also like it when it's 2:00 or 3:00 shorting at night. So, typically, I'm going to get up at 5:00, 5:30, go to bed at 10:30, 11:00 guy. But when I get called in the middle of the night, which isn't super frequent, but it's a handful of times a month, there's nothing more special than coming into the operating room at 2:00 in the morning with your team.

Everybody knows they were in bed and asleep and weren't really excited to be coming to work, but there's a connection that happens when you're the only people there and that the team is in sync. It's really fantastic. It's one of my favorite things about surgery.

Japhet De Oliveira:

And you've got to do something amazing.

Gan Dunnington:

You hope to.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Yeah.

Gan Dunnington:

You really hope to.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh hey, that's fantastic all. So, in the morning when you get up, you said you'd like to have coffee. Is that your first drink of the day?

Gan Dunnington:

100%.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. How do you have coffee?

Gan Dunnington:

I'm not like a coffee all day guy. I really am a coffee in the morning. Only cream, no sugar. I don't really like anything sweet in the coffee, but I'm not a black coffee guy either. I like a little cream, Aussie heavy whipping cream.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh really?

Gan Dunnington:

I would take preferentially over like milk. I get so mad when there's just milk and don't even start with oat milk or something.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Is it milk?

Gan Dunnington:

Right, right. But yeah, I'll have one, maybe two cups, and then I shift into Diet Coke mode for most of the rest of the day. It's very healthy. It's a very healthy lifestyle, but a nice baseline level of caffeine.

Japhet De Oliveira:

What are you drinking right now that's not Diet Coke?

Gan Dunnington:

Well, this is just an orange juice. I know. I thought I'm going to be a little bit healthy this morning.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's good.

Gan Dunnington:

I went down to the cafeteria. So, what you may not know is that either Tuesday or Thursday, and they alternate it so you don't really know for sure, is biscuits and gravy day in the cafeteria. Biscuits and gravy. It's a vegetarian gravy and I'm not a vegetarian in case you're wondering. But it's like my kids, when they had chicken nugget day cafeteria at school, they were so excited. We get pretty excited about this is a gravy day. So, I went down there today thinking this might be-

Japhet De Oliveira:

It could be.

Gan Dunnington:

... a gravy day and the gravy is not just for the biscuit. It's for also the sausage and the eggs. It wasn't.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It wasn't.

Gan Dunnington:

It was just regular pancake day, which I'm sure the pancakes are delicious, but I decided today, it was just going to be an orange juice.

Japhet De Oliveira:

There you go. There you go. Don't worry. There will be another Tuesday. There'll be another Thursday. It will come.

Gan Dunnington:

Please. I've actually asked for an increase in the number of biscuits and gravy day per week, but I've been denied so far.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Like your email.

Gan Dunnington:

Exactly, exactly. They don't know who they're talking to.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, I know. Again, if people were to describe your personality, would they describe you as an extrovert or an introvert and would you agree?

Gan Dunnington:

Yeah, so I think almost everybody would describe me as an extrovert. I will tell you, I grew up a very shy kid and really didn't speak in class until I got to maybe late college, medical school because I was so deathly afraid of saying the wrong thing and being proven an idiot. I mean, I think this is my shame trigger that's driven me to success in life is make sure nobody knows that you're not as good as they might think that you are, that I'm not really worthy of praise.

So, I think that in reality, I'm probably more of an introvert, trained extrovert. I do enjoy solitude. I do enjoy being on my own. One of my favorite things is to go take big long walks around with the dog and just listen to music. At the same time, I love people. I love coming to work because I love that interaction. I love the team. I love the chemistry, but I never quite know how to answer that question because I really like both aspects.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, that's good, man. That's good.

Gan Dunnington:

I think some people would say I'm cocky. I say confident. Some people might describe me as dismissive at times, but I don't think I'm dismissive. I like to hear smart things. And when somebody is saying something that I just totally disagree with, usually I disagree because I have a reason.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Sure.

Gan Dunnington:

And so when somebody says something without a rationale or reason and it's just because that's how it's always been or this is just the way it's supposed to be without some defense to the argument, I lose interest.

Japhet De Oliveira:

But it is fun to be in conversations with people where they have brilliant thoughts to bring to the table.

Gan Dunnington:

Oh, it's one of the best and that's why I spend a lot of time obviously in medicine. But I spend some time with device development where I get to talk to engineers, where I get to talk to business people. Because one of the other dirty secrets about medicine is they don't teach you anything about the law or business or money. You come out, you're stunted in growth. I'm starting my first job at 36.

Japhet De Oliveira:

You know how to do everything on the left ear.

Gan Dunnington:

Don't touch the right. But I love engaging in argument, not out of any hostility or anger, but out of the intellectual exercise. And I think sometimes people don't love that. They don't necessarily enjoy the challenge of an argument, and that's just different strokes for different folks.

Japhet De Oliveira:

But that banter is really good for your soul.

Gan Dunnington:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's good. That's good. So, leadership question here for you, are you a backseat driver?

Gan Dunnington:

Ooh, that's a good question. I feel it. Meaning I want to always backseat drive, particularly if I'm in the car with my kids or my wife who aren't particularly great drivers in my opinion.

Japhet De Oliveira:

In your opinion.

Gan Dunnington:

But I find myself restraining myself and it's because one time, one of my wife's best friends had the same reaction when she was in the car with her. She was thinking, "Oh, my God, I'm going to die." But they got to their location fine, and she said, "You know what? At that point, I just decided she hasn't died. She's not getting in car accidents all the time. Maybe it's my problem and I should just let it go." So that's what I do in the car. I said, "You know what?"

Japhet De Oliveira:

Let it go.

Gan Dunnington:

These guys are doing okay. I'm going to let this one go. And I think I do a reasonable job with that. It's not without commentary sometimes, but it's usually less forceful. It's the same in the operating room, to be honest. If you were to talk to my partner, Aaron Keim, great guy, fantastic surgeon, really superior, but all surgeons do things ever so slightly different.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Sure.

Gan Dunnington:

And one of my other favorite things about being in the operating room is sometimes you're doing something at such a microscopic level because we have telescopes on our eyes that you only you and the person across from you sees the moves. And it may be just a tiny little difference, but that one connection point of you and he being able to or she, whoever it is across the table, being able to connect over something that was maybe a little funny or something that was a little challenging or oh, good move or whoops.

Those types of things are great little personal interaction points. But if you talk to Dr. Keim, I'm sure he would call me a backseat driver, only because I make constant suggestions. What do you think about doing it this way or that way? But yeah, I enjoy that as well.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I have lots of friends who are surgeons, and one of them was telling me just this week, and I want to know this about you again. He said, "Sometimes in surgery there are some surgeons when they're talking and they're telling a story. They get so lost in story, they stop operating and then they snap the hands. Hey, how about we go back to..." Because they're engaged with each other. Does that happen to you and to your-

Gan Dunnington:

Let me tell you, it does not happen to me and it's one of my pet peeves in life when it happens to other surgeons. I've worked with other surgeons that every time they start telling a story, somebody asks them a question, maybe a call comes in from outside. They stop. Well, I think in normal conversation, you and me in a social situation, it's rude to be multitasking while you're talking to somebody else. In the operating room, I am like working and talking, working and talking, working. Just keep working. Don't stop moving your hands because especially in heart surgery, there is a time element that's very, very important.

And it's really easy if you have enough starts and stops because you have an interesting story about whatever Netflix show you watched last night come up, you can extend a case by an hour. I've seen it for sure. So, yeah, I'm a please work and talk at the same time kind of guy. That is another thing that I have to restrain myself from because as generally a multitasker, if I'm having a conversation with somebody, it is really easy to look down at your phone. You get a text or you get some ping and I can't stand it when people do that to me. It's pretty rude. I think everybody knows it when you're on the bad side of it, but it's hard to reconcile those two things, multitasking, but also then giving somebody dedicated attention.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right. So, let me ask you this bonus question. When you're at dinner with your family or friends, is your phone on the table upside down? Is it in your pocket? Is it face up?

Gan Dunnington:

This is a constant question for me as well. I say I try to put it in my pocket. I'll usually have it on silent or buzz or whatnot. If it buzzes enough, then sometimes it will come up onto the table and then I can just shoot my eyes over at it for a second. I think what I want to be is a person that doesn't have my phone on me. So, if I'm on call, I got to be on call. The reality is because of small hospital and it's 365 days that we're trying to split, usually between two, sometimes three people, almost every other night or every other week, I'm on call.

And so having to make that week to week adjustment between, okay, I need to be always available to okay, I'm off and I can let it go and don't have to be available is a tricky dynamic. So, I'd like to be the person that has the phone put away. I can't say that I'm there yet. I can tell you for sure, my kids are not there.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, I hear you.

Gan Dunnington:

They're on the phone for sure.

Japhet De Oliveira:

How many kids do you have?

Gan Dunnington:

I have three. So, my daughter, Ella, has graduated from college and she's doing an integrated business school thing in Alabama. So, real tight and she's coming back to visit this week. I'm super excited to see her. And then I have twins that just turned 18, boy and girl twins, Reagan and Gansevoort the third. He's not done. And they're graduating from high school in about a couple of weeks and headed off to college in Tulane. So, just going to be Bridget and myself at home with our 10 dogs hanging out.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Ten dogs. No.

Gan Dunnington:

Believe it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, 10 dogs?

Gan Dunnington:

Ten Labrador retrievers. I mean, don't even get me started. We started a wine, it's called Dog Farm because we literally live on a dog farm. You get one. So, we got our first dog when we got married in 1996. I still remember this little puppy. I was teaching high school for one year between college and medical school, Duke, because we went to Duke. Duke was our puppy, and Duke was eight weeks old. He would wander from kids' backpack to kids' backpack, just laying down on it. But every now and then we'd all look around.

Wait, this is down in Atherton at Sacred Heart Prep, like a little preppy school. And we had to disband the class to go find where Duke could run off to. So, we started with Duke and we worked our way through. And by the time in 2013, we moved to St. Helena, Duke was old enough. He was just passing away. He was like 15, 16 years old. And so we replaced him. Well, my wife said she was going to go get a dog. She went and got one and then she was going to go with her friend to help her pick one. But she came back-

Japhet De Oliveira:

With another dog.

Gan Dunnington:

... two more of her own. Next thing you know, you start breeding them. Every litter, if there's a puppy, you just can't resist.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, they're beautiful.

Gan Dunnington:

That's how it works up. We've been as high as 12. Right now, we're at 10. I'm probably going to be arrested. It might be a raid, but we have a little bit of property. We have a few acres. Even though you would think that six or seven acres, these dogs will want to disperse and spread out. No, they actually want to be in the 10-foot circle radius.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Right next to you.

Gan Dunnington:

It's a different life. Not everybody could take it. We love it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

This is a very serious question. Now, where did these dogs sleep?

Gan Dunnington:

I plead the fifth. They're a little bit everywhere. They're a little bit everywhere. But you've never slept with five dogs in your bed before.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Clearly not.

Gan Dunnington:

Let me tell you 10 don't fit on your bed.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, not a good call. Not a good call. All right. Hey, floor's open. Gan, where do you want to go? About between 11 and 100. Yeah.

Gan Dunnington:

Okay. Why don't we just start right in the middle? Five-oh.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Five-oh, and share about who's influenced you professionally.

Gan Dunnington:

Oh wow. This is actually a timely question. There's been a bunch, a whole bunch, but if I could point to my number one mentor, it's a man named Bobby Robbins and he's a heart surgeon at Stanford. So, this is a little bit of a lengthy story.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, that's okay.

Gan Dunnington:

When my wife and I were in college, her dad was the baseball coach at Stanford. Long time, 40-year coach, very, very successful. Duke was on semesters, Stanford was on quarters. So, we would finish the year at Duke and we would go out to Stanford to watch the end of the baseball game. So, here I am, 18, 19 years old, find myself sitting next to this southern redneck dude. We're slapping high-fives every time there's a home run, this and that. Turns out we hit it off. I think I went and played golf with him a time. He's a heart surgeon in Stanford, young guy, relatively early in his career, but he's taken over the transplant program and he invites me to come to the operating room.

I come in, I'm like 19 years old. I don't even know how to wash my hands, put on the gowns. He teaches me all that stuff. By the way, today as an act of Congress, you could not just go in. I couldn't invite you. Hey, Japhet, come on in. Let's go have you scrub in the operating room. But back then, it wasn't as big a deal. And he let me do a little bit of cutting and sewing, just enough that I thought, "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life." So he and I kept up all through the years and he ended up being the chief at Stanford and then ultimately has gotten out of surgery. He went on to major administrator and then was a big university president. I just saw him recently, but I was, like I said, I think, 18, 19 when I met him. I'm 51 now, and he more than anybody else has been such a champion, such a supporter. I owe him a lot-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Wow.

Gan Dunnington:

... of my career.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Does he know this?

Gan Dunnington:

Oh, I tell it to him constantly.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's fantastic.

Gan Dunnington:

There's another guy, Mark Peltier, who's a heart surgeon. He's now the chief at Yale and he was a young... He just finished his a transplant fellowship. And when I was a relatively lowly resident and I had transferred from Virginia out to Stanford and basically Stanford had a spot for me to transfer into their general surgery, but they needed me to kill a year and doing lab stuff or something. So, I told Mark, I said, "Look, I'll be your resident. I'll take call every night. I'll do everything that you don't want to do." And he said, "Yeah, sure."

And that guy taught me how to operate for the year, and I did about 40 cardiac operations, maybe 60 cardiac operations, only having a couple years of general surgery under my belt, obviously with him really doing the cases, but me feeling like I was doing the cases and it was almost like a second fellowship. So, he's still a great friend. I just saw him a week ago in Seattle at one of the national conferences. He keeps climbing up chains and eventually he'll probably be president of the university, but he's just a really, really decent guy. And it's hard for me to say that because he's Canadian.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, despite that.

Gan Dunnington:

But even though he's Canadian, I still welcome him with open arms still.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's very generous of you.

Gan Dunnington:

We don't talk about that 51st state thing for sure.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's good for you, man. It's good for you. All right. We're next then. That was 50.

Gan Dunnington:

Okay, that was 50. So, it's hard to know if we should go up or down, but let's just split the difference to go up to 75.

Japhet De Oliveira:

All right, 75 it is. Do you remember the very first thing you bought with your own money? What was it and why?

Gan Dunnington:

I don't know if I remember the first thing I bought with my own money, but here's a funny story about money is I remember the first bank account I got. I think I was 12 years old. My mom took me in and I remember they gave me an ATM card. This is when there weren't really ATMs around, but the ATM card came with the PIN number and that PIN number was only four digits and it was a word and numbers.

No lie, every password I've had to this day is based on that initial PIN I got, which was random, but now they make you change it so much. I have to admit, it isn't always a component of every password. I mean, I don't know what you do, but on my phone, I have one of my notes that's basically three pages of passwords and pin numbers.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, I did the same thing until passwords came out on the phone. Now I transfer.

Gan Dunnington:

Do you go with the suggested password?

Japhet De Oliveira:

I do now. They're so long. It's just fantastic.

Gan Dunnington:

They are so long, but I'm always like, "But what if..." I mean, I'm not going to remember it obviously.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, I'm never remembering them.

Gan Dunnington:

So you're just counting on facial recognition.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes, and my face is so good. No, no.

Gan Dunnington:

You have a face for radio if I've ever seen it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Gan Dunnington:

I'm just kidding, Jay, but I'm just kidding.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, no, it's very good. I'm going to see my therapist about that one now. All right. Hey, we're next. That was 75.

Gan Dunnington:

Okay. Yeah, I mean, honestly, when I think about all the things that I've bought that I really care, it's not the first thing you buy. It's like the most fun thing you buy. And you know what I did a few years ago? This is pre-COVID. I'm a big gadget guy. Love gadgets, especially electrical things. And I got into this one-wheel. You know what a one-wheel is?

Japhet De Oliveira:

No.

Gan Dunnington:

A one-wheel, it's like a skateboard, but has one tire in the middle.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's right. I've seen them.

Gan Dunnington:

And it was designed by snowboarders and I like board sports in general. I wasn't like a big skater guy, but I liked riding skateboard. Anyway, I got into one-wheels, loved it so much, and they were expensive, but I loved it so much. I ended up probably giving away 15 one-wheels over the course of the next two, three years.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Try to convince us to love it.

Gan Dunnington:

Well, to just go ride with people. They'd be like, "Well, I don't have one." Okay, well here, take my old one. And they would give me an excuse to get the newer model, but you can ride them around trails. I think that was one of my bigger splurges from a financial standpoint. But then ultimately, I realized I was giving joy, which is what was my favorite thing. So, this is how I get to work now. I've advanced from the one-wheel where I stacked quite a few times and realized again, you're going to hurt yourself to now I ride an electric unicycle, which is more straightforward, and your feet are on the side.

And I've got a pretty nice off-road aversion, but that's my favorite part of the day. We talked about early morning, late night, but it's riding to work and riding home from work. It's such a great time because it's only about a two-mile ride for me on this wheel and not enough people ride those things so that a lot of people haven't seen it. And I get to go by... There's this little Adventist elementary school on the way, and if I'm ever coming in a little bit later in the morning, all of the kids are like, "Wow, cool." So that's great. Anyway, that was just my corollary to question number 75. Let's just keep shooting it up. Let's go to maybe 85.

Japhet De Oliveira:

85. All right. Describe a role model you aspire to be like.

Gan Dunnington:

So I talk about this with my wife all the time and some other people about how there's only a very small number of people that I consider role model worthy like my guys. Some of them may not even know it. I told one the other day that he was going in my top five. There's probably about 5 or 10 people. And it has nothing to do with how much money they make or what job they have. It really has to do with their approach to life, how they balance work, life, exercise, all these things that I think really, spirituality, that really seemed to matter. So, I don't think I have one, but I have four or five out there that I want to keep touching base with. And usually those are people that you can get a little deeper with.

You can actually connect on a real human level. It's not just, "What do you do for work? Oh, what did you and the kids do over the weekend?" Sports, sports, sports, news, weather and sports, it's easy filler time. But when you start getting to real questions, and maybe the real question is like, "Oh, do you ever think you're going to retire? Why would you, or what are some of the things that you haven't done in life that you're looking forward to doing?" Or with other doctor friends, certainly nobody understands cardiac surgery like other cardiac surgeons.

I really enjoy some of the intimate, vulnerable moments of sharing complications, problems, struggles, maybe the lawsuit or something like that that really hits you. So, my God in this world speaks to me through other people, and it's that deep connection with other people that I think is what life is all about.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I agree.

Gan Dunnington:

Why we're here.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah, no, it's truth. I actually do believe that. I mean, I'm a believer in God, and I believe that God does speak through humans.

Gan Dunnington:

Absolutely.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Into us. And I think we learn so much from each other. It's brilliant.

Gan Dunnington:

And I honestly don't care what God people have, but I'm always struck when people don't have a God. I feel sad. I don't judge them as bad. I feel sad for them because I think this is a component of life that if you don't have it, how do you even evaluate or assess how you're doing?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes, no, that's good. It's good. I like that. I like that a lot. Unfortunately, Gan, we only have time for two more.

Gan Dunnington:

I mean, we could do this all day long.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I know.

Gan Dunnington:

You are fun. Can I ask you one question? So everybody on the podcast might know, where are you from?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Where am I from?

Gan Dunnington:

Because the silky smooth tones-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Southeast London.

Gan Dunnington:

Southeast London. It all makes sense.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It makes sense. Yeah. Southeast London, still born and bred.

Gan Dunnington:

Do you get back or no?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, often.

Gan Dunnington:

Good.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Often. Oh, I love London.

Gan Dunnington:

What's crazy is I've been to Europe so many times. Right now, I'm running a clinical trial for this device in the Netherlands. And so I'm in the Netherlands all the time. My wife loves Paris. We go to Paris every now and then. I've still never been to London.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really?

Gan Dunnington:

Yeah.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, I try to take brothers to London all the time just for a long weekend.

Gan Dunnington:

Let's do it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's cheaper than flying to New York.

Gan Dunnington:

It's crazy.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's crazy. But yeah, we should talk about it.

Gan Dunnington:

Let's do it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

London's alive, but all right. Where'd you want to go last?

Gan Dunnington:

All right. Let's just go to whatever, 99.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Ninety-nine.

Gan Dunnington:

I wouldn't want to be so presumptuous to go to 100.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, I would love to ask you that, but you tell me. But here's 99. What's the most difficult truth that you've ever told?

Gan Dunnington:

The most difficult truth probably is really more something I had to tell myself first, which comes back to what we were talking about earlier with this negative core belief. The idea that the reason I think I've had success and have kept pushing myself and driving myself so hard through the years is because I was radically insecure about being good enough, or was I valuable? I think once I could start to admit that, not that it was true, that I wasn't valuable, but that I had that concern or fear to myself, that I could then talk to my parents, who I think I spent a lot of my time trying to live up to their expectation now.

Honestly, when my mom passed away, it was one of the most illuminating things for me in life. I realized, wait, I can't be mad at her anymore. I think I was mad at her and then I realized, "Wait, were you ever really mad at her? Were you just mad at yourself for not being able to be your own person?" Always wanted to be who I thought she wanted me to be. And so I was able to have some really, really good, tough discussions with her, basically on her deathbed right before she died.

Japhet De Oliveira:

What a privilege.

Gan Dunnington:

Yeah. I think a lot of people don't get that opportunity and being able to clear all grievances, but also tell her that I loved her and I forgave her for anything that my own resentments that were coming out. It was like a giant boulder off my shoulders.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, what a moment. A moment, honestly like that between people that you really love and admire, it's magical.

Gan Dunnington:

Absolutely.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. All right, Gan, last number. Where?

Gan Dunnington:

All right.

Japhet De Oliveira:

A hundred? Gan, tell us about one question you don't want to answer.

Gan Dunnington:

Well, I mean, I think the question that's always the most challenging is what are you doing? What are you doing it all for? What's the purpose in the end? Say, God willing, I make it to 80 or 90. What did I bring to the world? Why did I bring it to the world? Is the world a better or worse place off because of me having been here? So I still am wrestling with what the answer's going to be to that in the end. What I do know is I'm not a sit still guy, and I have no intention of ever in my life retiring. I think a lot of people have this concept of, oh, you work to a certain point, but that doesn't mean that it's the same life or career or whatnot. And so I'm always shifting.

It's not really a concern, but it's a concern of wasting time and feeling like a whole decade went where I could have been doing more. Not necessarily from a productivity standpoint, although that's often how we get measured, but just from a life satisfaction and globally, am I cool with myself? Am I okay with the example I set for my children, the support maybe I gave to my wife? Have I been genuine, honest, authentic, truly me? And if not, why not? And two, is there something I can do to get to that point? So I don't know if that answers your question, but I think that's my quest. I hope it's everybody's quest, because I think a life of authenticity is the only way that we do connect.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Have you written your obituary?

Gan Dunnington:

I have not. Should I?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Yeah. At 51, yeah, you should. You should. Because you've got so much more life ahead of you, and it's just so precious.

Gan Dunnington:

Yeah. No, you're right. It's a good thought experiment for sure. And I think everybody would love to have you see it happen in a TV or movie every now and then where somebody gets to hear what somebody would've said about them, and the light is shown on reality.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I've written notes to my two boys as if I'm gone, and then it's questioned what I'm doing.

Gan Dunnington:

Do you need to read them back to yourself every now and then?

Japhet De Oliveira:

And then I have to rewrite them.

Gan Dunnington:

Yeah. And that's what I would hope. I think that's a good exercise, but I would hope to be constantly having to rewrite.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes, that's exactly it because you are learning all the time. And the greatest thing we can do is continue to learn.

Gan Dunnington:

A lot of wisdom there, Japhet.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. Gan, I tell you, I'm excited for your life. I'm excited for your future.

Gan Dunnington:

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you, man. It's been a lot of fun.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's been good. It's been good. I encourage people to do the same thing literally at every podcast. Just like sit with a friend, get a good drink, hopefully tea or coffee or something.

Gan Dunnington:

Orange juice.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Orange juice. There I say it. Orange juice. Hopefully. If it's freshly squeezed, yes.

Gan Dunnington:

I'm sure they squeeze it fresh before they run in through that machine.

Japhet De Oliveira:

But I think we are changed by listening to each other and we are better beings for it. Yeah.

Gan Dunnington:

Amen.

Japhet De Oliveira:

So God bless you, man. Thank you so much.

Narrator:

Thank you for joining us for The Story & Experience Podcast. We invite you to read, watch, and submit your story and experience at adventisthealth.org/story. The Story & Experience Podcast was brought to you by Adventist Health for the Office of Culture.