Episode 17: Sunday October 11

Drs. Sam Jejurikar, Salvatore Pacella, and Sam Rhee welcome special guests Shari Brasher, CEO & Executive Director Fresh Start Surgical Gifts (https://www.freshstart.org/) and Pro Football Hall of Fame all time great, the legendary Marcus Allen.

Today's show focuses on fantastic people in an organization that enriches the world in the service of others. Fresh Start Surgical Gifts is a charity for children that transforms the lives of disadvantaged infants, children, and teens with physical deformities through the gift of reconstructive surgery. As Marcus Allen says, "Rich by what you give, and poor by what you keep." Do not miss!

Full Transcript (Click here for PDF)
2020.10.11 S01E17 Fresh Start
Dr. Sam Jejurikar: [00:00:00] Good morning, everyone. And welcome to our latest edition of Three Plastic Surgeons in a Microphone. I'm Dr. Sam Jejurikar Instagram handle @samjejurikar and as always happy to be joined by my compatriots, Dr. Sam Rhee Paramus, New Jersey, whose Instagram handle is @Bergencosmetic. And Dr. Sal Pacella in San Diego who goes by @SanDiegoplasticsurgeon.
And, just a brief bit of legal stuff before we get into the meat of the program, the show is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The show is for informational purposes, only treatment and results may vary based upon the circumstances, situation, and medical judgment after appropriate discussion, and always seek the advice of your surgeon or other qualified health.
Provider with any questions you may have regarding medical care, never disregard medical professional medical advice, or delay seeking advice because of anything you may see on this show. And today we have different sort of show, a very special show. We're very, gratified what we're going to be able to do.
We're going to talk about charitable endeavors and plastic surgery, and, talking about a project that dr. South the cello of San Diego has been working with extensively. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to dr. Patel and he can give us some intro. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:01:12] Thanks gents. Once again, everybody welcome to our podcast this morning.
I'm super excited to be talking about, an organization that's very close to my heart called Fresh Start Surgical Gifts. I was, introduced to fresh starts by one of my colleagues dr. Mike Rucker, who's a local plastic surgeon, a very good friend here in San Diego, about 12 years ago when I first moved here.
and it's a, it's an organization that, donated plastic surgery services, cosmetic, or reconstructive services to underserved children's all over the world, including the domestic United States. And, we, this organization is just a fantastic organization as a slightly different model than a lot of, other volunteer surgical organizations.
and we're gonna dive into that in a little bit here. so just to, to intro here, Jen, you are both involved in some charitable endeavors and plastic surgery, correct? Sam, Jersey, Sam, Dr. Rhee from Paramus. Tell me a little bit about what you're involved with. 
Dr. Sam Rhee: [00:02:11] All of us at Michigan all started, with Dr. Bob Gilman, when we were residents, a lot of us traveled to Columbia, South America, and, worked with him on a cleft palate and lip, repair trips. And after that, I've traveled with Sam and other people to Bangladesh, and I've been to China. I've been to North Korea, a couple of different places, but I think we all have had a long history of charitable care and giving back in surgery.
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:02:42] Yeah. Yeah. 
Dr. Sam Jejurikar: [00:02:43] I've been fortunate enough, as dr. Rhee alluded to, several years ago, he actually took me on a trip to Bangladesh and I hit it off well with that organization, Smile Bangladesh. So every year I go to Bangladesh to do cleft lip and palate surgery that actually Dr. Rhee was on the board of directors.
And when his time is up, they asked me to take his place. So I'm currently on the board of directors to that organization. it's a huge part of what we do. It's so incredibly gratifying as Dr. Pacella. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:03:10] All right. without any further delay, I wanted to introduce, a colleague and very good friend of mine , Sherry Brasher. She is the CEO, of Fresh Start Surgical Gifts. I've known her for 12 years and she's just a wonderful personality. Runs the organization. And she's going to come on and tell us a bit about a fresh start. So Sherry. 
Shari Brasher: [00:03:32] Hi everybody. Thank you for having me. I've been around Fresh Start for over almost 30 years now, but we do provide plastic and reconstructive surgery.
Very similar to all of you, but we do it in the U S hospitals in San Diego. Congo. So we bring the kids, us, which allows us to be able to do some really difficult procedures, which include followup and sometimes hosting the kids, having them live in a home, here nearby so that we can, I have more than several, sometimes several procedures done at different times within the year.
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:04:09] So Sherry, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it. So tell us a little bit about how fresh start started. What was the beginning of the organization? 
The organization was Dr. Dennis Nigro. He had a private practice and he was helping kids who came in that couldn't afford the surgeries that he was talking to them about.
And he had a hard time saying no to anybody. So he started doing them on a Saturday. And his office, like every three months or so he picked Saturday and have five or six patients. And our staff was a voluntary time. And at that point in time, I was working for him as his business manager. Yeah. And that turned into a partnership, with another freestanding surgical site.
And then finally, it's been several years about 12 that we've been working at Rady children's hospital and have a right relationship with them and partner on doing these surgeries at their facilities. 
That's great. So how is, how exactly is this? Maybe describe a little bit about how the surgery weekend runs and how we go about prepping patients for surgery.
what's the process for applying for surgery that patients may have. 
Shari Brasher: [00:05:18] Yep. So we are mostly through the internet or verbally referrals from people. And if you go to our website fresh start gone, or there's an application for patients that we make everybody fill out because we have a very sophisticated eight week process where we have, several doctors who get together and.
Dr. Pacella is certainly one of the leads on that to discuss the applications and only the physicians are making the decisions it gets into the program and what surgeon would be best to lead on the procedures. And then we'll figure out a game plan for their surgical. care. And then of course we work in our offices to schedule them get, sometimes they come from other countries, so we need to do travel lodging, visas.
We take care of all of that. We pay for all of that. there is no cost to anybody for it, and we house them, feed them, give them there. Pre surgical, it consultations and help. And then of course all the surgery and it's more than just surgery. We also do, dental care and sometimes laser adolescents, scars, speech therapy, if they have something done in their mouth.
So it's completely comprehensive and very, complicated really over the, sometimes kids have been patients with us for 10, 15 years, depending on how complicated their cases are. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:06:33] That's great. Yeah. so tell us a little bit about the medical program committee. what, what does that, so just to start off it's, this is the larger group of doctors and coordinators that were together to prep patients. So tell us a little bit about that process. What does that involve? 
Shari Brasher: [00:06:51] We have a meeting every seven weeks and it's about 16 surgeons and nurses that come together and we are able to look at and go over the. Applications of the patients see their pictures. We often write the highlights of their stories, why they want the surgery and how it's going to change their lives.
in the office, we've already done the background checks to make sure that they can't, it's something that they can't afford so that we are therefore able to help them. And then the surgeons are all sitting around the table collaboratively, which is really incredible to me because I see plastic surgeons as fairly competitive.
which makes them, makes you as successful as you are. and, it's just amazing to see them in one room talking about these patients, collaborating and deciding, have you tried this procedure? Have you tried this? and then oftentimes we, I have more than one surgeon in a room.
And so what's that. Incredibly exciting to me is honestly, these kids fresh start. Kids are getting better care than even my kids would get because you go and see one surgeon. And I'm not saying that one plastic surgeon wouldn't do as good of a job, but honestly, when you have collaboration amongst some of the greatest in one room, I, that, our kids, even though it's free, it's actually better than what the average patient is paying for.
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:08:09] Yeah. That's and, just to, to comment on that is a really fun process for me. I, I would say medical director running that committee for a number of years. And, when we're out in the community as a plastic surgeon in private practice, it's not often you get to collaborate with your colleagues.
guys like dr. Dr. Jejurikar in Texas or Dr. Rhee in New Jersey, it'd be. Super fun to operate, or take care of patients together. and this is one of the only opportunities I have in my career to really do a team approach to the surgery and taking care of patients. And it's really fun. We have a lot of comedy at the, medical program committee, a lot of, joking.
It's really a lot of fun. now after the patients are prepped in the medical program committee, tell me what happens on the surgery weekend. what's that all about? How does it run and what's the structure. 
So the structure is such that at Rady children's, we're able to use up to 10 operating rooms.
I think we've only used eight at this point. We've used several rooms there. We have the first right of refusal on a Saturday. And the surgeons are giving up their time for free and donating their time and expertise to these patients. And they are coming in and just like any normal patient would they check in, they go through preop, they have their surgery and they are, and they have the recovery and oftentimes we have nurses, they with them in a hotel room or at their wherever host whoever's home, they're staying at.
Host home to get the aftercare. They have followup treatments and also follow up appointments. So honestly it is just like any other patient that you would see in your own practices. 
Okay. Great. And then how has the actual weekend run for surgery? Like what, when is the surgery done?
When is the followup done? Who volunteers? 
Shari Brasher: [00:09:54] it's everybody, who's there as a volunteer, not a single person is paid. And, they literally will come in and have surgery and it, depending on what the surgeons, I have decided, as far as their care plan, that we follow that very specifically, we need drive them to the offices or afterwards they get all that care afterwards.
And often times the surgeon will suggest, they need this next procedure and we provide and put them on the schedule. So it's never, it really is rarely ever a onetime, a procedure. And then they go home. A lot of times, they. Come back for, like I had mentioned before, for laser treatments or, any other things, our revisions.
So it's up to the surgeons to dictate what it is that they need, but we make sure that whatever it is that they require, we provide that. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:10:40] That's great. and from what I understand, and from what I'm, involved with, the patients stay in town until they're ready to recover, correct? 
Shari Brasher: [00:10:48] That's correct. We don't send them back until the surgeons say that they're ready to be on a plane and flying back. And oftentimes if they're going to need several procedures, then we'll just keep them at a host family's home. And we've had some patients live here, off and on, for a good couple years.
Depending on what, how difficult the cases are. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:11:07] And that's a slightly the different model than a lot of the other, organizations that donate plastic surgery. Sam and Sam, you guys, you go into country is do what you need to do, and then you have take off. And, just with your experience, gents, how do you manage that?
If you have a complex case or something like that? 
Dr. Sam Jejurikar: [00:11:24] it's a challenge for sure. it's, I'm listening to your guys' compensation and it's amazing. You guys can offer so much more than a weekend when we go into another country, we are limited in what we can do and have someone recovering and just within the few days that we're there.
And then when we, when we, we can't. We can't undertake big cases that are potentially life altering changes. Sometimes if it's going to pose the patient at an undue risk. So listening to what you guys are doing here, it's quite remarkable and it offers a whole different level of service and what we're able to do when we go abroad.
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:11:56] Oh, that's great. yeah, so Sherry, obviously it takes a lot of, support, donor support and volunteer support to run a charity like this. So tell us a little bit about how financially, you're able to create all this value for patients that are on a charity. we're very, 
Shari Brasher: [00:12:17] we have, again, I've been involved for 29 years and it started out as just, a plastics, the plastic surgeon, Dr nigro, and his staff that donated their time, then fresh start, started having their own staff. And of course, I was a volunteer at the very beginning. So for 14 years I was a volunteer. And now for 15 years I've been an employee. and now we have 11 employees in San Diego and two in Chicago when we.
Partner with the American society of plastic surgeons and they provide a references to us and they helped us with our site where it's actually a partnership with the, ASP S over there in Chicago with Comer Children's. And we do the same thing there. And, we obviously couldn't do any of this without the generous donors that we have.
And, not only is it some amazing companies like EDCO and, big companies like that. Provide the support for us, but Audrey Geisel and Jim Goddess and all these, law firms, et cetera, a lot of people, it takes a huge community. For example, on surgery weekend, it's over a hundred volunteers on a weekend that come in to provide surgery to anywhere from, usually six to 18 kids. So the it's like when you go on a cruise line and they say, Oh, you get two people for every, one of you as a guest. this is significantly more. And they're getting like, again, the best care possible, but it wouldn't be possible with the financial help. And, we have several celebrities involved and, we it's all donor based.
We don't get any government funds. We write grants. We put on two events a year or a golf tournament and gala, and the rest there's people who are generous enough over these 29 years to support us through the thick and thin even with COVID. We have people writing checks, thankfully, because we're still providing these surgeries because they're necessary to the kids.
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:13:57] With that, you were talking about some of the, celebrity donors out there. And I wanted to bring on a very special guest, and Sherry, I'll give a little bit of his resume here. He was, a Heisman trophy winner in 1981, a national champion for college football in 1978.
He was a six time Pro Bowler Super Bowl champion times two and Hall of Famer. Correct.
So smidgen of his resume. So ladies and gentlemen, I just want to introduce you, Mr. Marcus Allen who's kindly joined us today for a broadcast. Marcus, are you there? All right. We've got them online. Mr. Marcus Allen Marcus. Thanks for joining us. 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:14:39] Good morning guys. How are you? I'm great guys. I'm doing great, man.
I'm honored to be on the online with you guys and hello, Sherry. You look beautiful as always wonderful people in the entire world guy. So it's a, it's an honor to be on with guys. I think who. A believer as I do, you're rich by what you give and you're poor, but what you keep. So I appreciate you guys a great deal and all the people with fresh start, frankly, and all the doctors that, donate their time and, their services.
So it's great. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:15:11] Now, Marcus, tell us a little bit about how you got involved with fresh starts and what your, what you do with them currently. 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:15:18] I gotta tell you why. I was just thinking about that and go, Mike, I guess I was just caught up in the charisma of a cheerier story in which he was doing.
And I just said before he even, was able to go to the, the opposite is, and see some business, some of the kids that were, about to, or have surgery. I just, I said, yes. I, first of all, I think. there's a lot of great stories out there, but most often it's the people that are involved with it.
And she's such a great and wonderful and dynamic person that I basically just said, yes, whatever you want me to do. I went down and I had an opportunity in San Diego to visit some of the kids. And I was just really, touch by, what these doctors, do and the kids that were there.
I remember there was one really rare case. I think you remember this young lady she may have been from, Latin America. I'm not quite sure, but she, had a rare disease that, she couldn't be out. And 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:16:17] yes. Yeah. And 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:16:18] it was just remarkable, to see her and. And they're really look at her life and really say, if anybody could add to give her or some sort of sunshine well in her life, it would be great.
You know what I mean? So there were so many cases like that guys, and I just, I really, from then on, I've been very small way been a fundraiser, and a spokesperson. I'm always talking about Sherry every time I haven't even been involved. Which I donate. Idonated personally for many years and, this recent year, even though we didn't have a golf tournament and I was able to, I, we didn't have one, but I was able to give, I think some significant funds.
So Sherry and I partnered with her now I used to be just to, donate, but now I'm, I'm part of the team. If you will. Raising money for Fresh Start, because I think it's such a wonderful organization. Again, that always looked at athletes as heroes and I go man, you guys are the heroes.
You guys are actually transforming. Live aesthetically, these kids come in and they look a certain way, but you guys not only change that, but you change them internally to maybe feel better about themselves. They actually get a fresh start on life. in a small way, I'm just doing my part. It makes me feel good.
It makes me feel good that I'm helping people. And it makes me feel good that I'm working with a wonderful person like sharing what she's trying to accomplish. And we may accuse the can't afford. services like this. And when you have people that donate their time and Sherry, basically covered it. it's not just, they do surgery and they send you home. Now it's followup and it's, it's comprehensive. it is the full package. And to be a part of that, again, give kids a fresh start on life. They can't afford it. Is it makes you feel pretty good. Yep. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:18:06] Now one, one aspect of it organization. that's pretty fantastic is not only does fresh starts take care of international patients that have no insurance, but we take care of domestic patients, the kids from the U S that may be under-insured. So for example, patients who may have geared deformities that just are on the border of cosmetic surgery, but you can imagine as a young boy or a young girl, Going through grade school and being ridiculed for your ears or your nose or your teeth, and you know how that can psychologically affect someone.
it's just really special. And when these kids come in and we have, we're in the Sunday clinic and we have a, hall of fame athletes coming and helping us change our dressing, that's pretty fantastic, 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:18:51] No, it's better than fantastic, but I listen to, I got to tell you guys, obviously you guys, as football players or athletes supposed to be big strong, and, but every time I see a video.
It's very place where it transformed a kid's life. I'm actually, I got to turn away cause I always start crying, man.
This is what life's all about. This is the best of America right here, guy. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:19:14] Yeah. that's a good segue Marcus. So what I'd like to do is I'm going to share my screen here for a second. I just want to show some photographs of some patients in cases that I've been involved with over the years here. here we go.
All right, Sam, we got that going.
Sam Rhee, can you see that?
So a few of these are from Instagram. I just downloaded them here. So I'm on the left. We have a wonderful young lady. Her name is Florence. And she's, she was adopted from a couple in Montreal, I believe. Is that true? 
And where is she from? She's from Indonesia and she had a congenital eyelid deformity and this one wonderful couple, sought us out to assist with.
Get a good fit for a, some eyelid reconstruction and the eyelid prosthesis. I worked, on floor ranch with, one of my colleagues, dr.  who's an ophthalmologist, and we did some work around her mouth to restore her smile. She had some facial paralysis and, just a wonderful child.
on the right here is a young gent, I believe he's from Texas. his name is jr. And, two little guy, he had a little, congenital, hemangioma and eyelid deformity where it was obstructing his vision. And we did a pretty quick little surgery on him to remove some of this hemangioma that I get is just a great 
Marcus. Sounds like you got your hands full there.
 Probably one of our most fantastic young gentlemen, just an absolute success story is this gentleman on the left. His name is beloved. Jeff Petty and beloved is a young boy who formerly was a young boy who was from Africa. And unfortunately picked up a landmine. And it caused severe destruction to his face.
And at the time he didn't have any access to medical resources. He was, seen at another institution that did a large procedure for a debris movement and a free flap and to reconstruct his jaw. And then he came to us, I think, close to about eight or nine years ago. And we've done work on him, almost every year.
to restore a bit of a smile on his face. And he is just a wonderful guy. He was adopted by a family. the tinnies in San Diego here and beloved is just an absolute American success story. He, came, just came here with minimal education, went to school, got his, high school diploma.
And now currently is in college and I was applying for it, us citizenship. He's just a beautiful young gentlemen, we're starting. Recently got engaged. That's right. Oh, wow. I'm still just a wonderful guy. here is our, on the right side is our latest, procedure. We did just this past, two Saturdays ago.
So this is my, my, my colleague, dr. Jeff Shumanski, who I operate with. And, we did, a bilateral gynecomastia case on this young gentleman. Who's from the United States. here's another, the guy on the left Ricard. No, Ricardo is, also from Texas, under insured. He had, a congenital ear deformity here.
So this is him on the lower left, right the day of surgery. we performed a surgery. He came out looking fantastic. This is him a few weeks later, sitting next to me on the right and he's just ecstatic and. His little brother I think is going to come and see us at some point, as well.
He's got some ears there too. So I'm on the left here. These are a few of our volunteers. This is, dr. Victor Chung and, one of our, excuse me, one of our older surgeons, who's, who's been operating with us for a number of years. this is Georgianna. One of our patients who. was born with a congenital eyelid deformity and some loss of bone on her nose.
And you can see her on the right side. she was just having some difficulty closing her eyes. And I did a procedure on her where we took a risk tendon and reconstructed her eye to maintain the position of her eyelid. So another fantastic success story, here. I'm going to stop sharing.
We'll go back here. as a surgeon, it's just been, Really fantastic to be involved with the organization. the beauty of the way fresh start is structured is I can continually donate my services every six weeks. And throughout that time without really leaving out of the country or disrupting, my.
My life or my family's life, for a period of time. And, with COVID, this is even much more important that we're able to touch so many lives without, really relocating or going to another country. and I think one of the, one of the most fantastic things is as I'm sure the two other surgeons on the call will agree.
we as plastic surgeons, as doctors, we're, our life is sometimes confused with patients and insurance companies. And it's very, it's very easy to lose that doctor, patient connection, many times throughout the Workday and the beauty of fresh start is this is just a pure connection of patients.
And physician and helping others without any of the trauma of anything else surrounding the patient's care. and that's just, what's really special here. 
Dr. Sam Jejurikar: [00:24:34] Yeah, I 
Shari Brasher: [00:24:35] did want to add that, in the third, almost 30 years, we've provided, 8,000, almost 8,000 kids with fresh starts. It represents about $42 million of a surgery.
That's measured by CPT codes. it's really incredible. And I did also want to mention that every dollar that's donated. A 100% of the funds go to the kids. we, I was fortunate enough to meet this woman with our founder who donated a very large sum of money to us, which sets in a separate account.
We knew only draw 4% off of it per year to pay for all of our overhead so that I go out and fundraise one to $2 million every single year, which covers everything else that we need and all that money. whenever you donate, literally goes directly to the kids, not one single penny pays for any overhead.
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:25:21] Wow. That's fantastic.
 we, it's not all hard work. we do have a lot of fun too. The, every year fresh start throws this butterfly. Butterfly gala, which is a big donor, gala. We have a big auction. We, we own some, fantastic, weekends and products and, even gorgeous paintings from surgeons and others.
and, it's really a fantastic evening. Marcus. you've been to the gala before, right? Yes. Yes, that's a fun time. They're great time. 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:25:51] So everything that they do is a is, and I think you certainly believe in having a good time while raising, money. So it's it's exciting again, guys. I, my hats off to all you guys and Sherry too, for creating such an environment that we can go out and raise money and you doctors, provide such care for these young people, in their situation again, it's good to be a part of such a great thing. 
Shari Brasher: [00:26:13] And if you want to meet Marcus in person, he puts on a tournament, a golf tournament every year in June, first weekend in June. And it's hosted at Pelican Hill and he gets all of his, a list celebrities and they come out and there's a person who plays in every single group.
the names are huge and, everybody just has a great time racing well into the six figures for these kids. And. Oh, I just can't thank Marcus enough for what he does. He's our new newest advisory board member and we are so blessed to have him. And yeah, I was really 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:26:46] it's really, I was really happy because we had to cancel our event. like so many events out there have been canceled, but we were still able to get money out this year. So we were thrilled by that guy because, it's important to us again, we like having a good time where we like raising money to help others. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:27:01] Yep. That's great. That's fantastic. so Marcus, we would be, we're awestruck football fans here.
We're just gonna, we're just gonna shift gears a little bit. It would be, we would be remiss if we didn't pick your brain a little bit while we still had your odd about your NFL career, if you  don't mind. 
So I'm gonna hand it over to dr. Reed from, from New Jersey here. 
Dr. Sam Rhee: [00:27:22] it was funny when I told my wife that Marcus Allen was going to be on our podcast.
She's not a football fan, so she didn't really understand, she knew and then I said, listen, this is the only guy to put it in her terms. I said, he won the Heisman, national, NCAA national champion, a super bowl, NFL MVP, and super old Superbowl MVP. And no one else has ever done that.
And she's Oh, okay. So that's wow. so she, at her level, not only realize how elite you were and to me, Like Sal says, we just, it would be wrong for us not to take advantage of being able to talk to someone who's performed at such an elite level, such a long time. 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:28:00] Appreciate that. I just, I'm just glad you didn't say  I fell off my big wheel was when you play, 

Dr. Sam Rhee: [00:28:08] you looked like you could still play right now. It's amazing.
So one of my questions is I do coach athletes at a local gym CrossFit Bison in New Jersey. And. I asked some people what they wanted to know and want to, and one of the questions was out as an elite athlete like you after so many years of competing at such a high level, just turn it off because suddenly, like as surgeons, we can see kind of Peter out, we can slow down, we can change our workload, but suddenly you're going from competing at the highest level to stopping what you've done for decades in your case.
So what is that transition like? 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:28:46] the transition was easy for me because I, the day that I entered football, I always said this, and I have to attribute this to Ronnie Lott as well. And we said, this is what we do. It's not who we are. 
So even though I loved it and I was passionate about it, I never saw myself as just that I saw myself in many other ways.
I saw myself as a philanthropist. Now, one of my biggest duties is, the competitive edge that you talk about. I turn it on being a dad that's really important. because I think if we look at some of our issues today, what are the things that are happening in society?
Those are all symptoms too. I think one problem, I think there's almost 20 million households that have, single parent homes, So to me, that's very important. I have a wonderful, he's been a tremendous example and I know the importance of having a cheerleader at home as opposed to somebody even booed you at home.
So you never really, turn it off at the same time. It's if you approach your careers, that. That's what I do. And it's not who I am. I think it's easier to transition because I saw myself as so much more, even though I was passionate about it. I wanted to be the very best at that.
I never saw myself fully as just a football player. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:30:11] That's great. That's great advice for any professional. I can see that translate into our lives here. We know many surgeons who, died with a scalpel in their hand and never really got to know their kids or the family or any sort of outside interests.
So that's great advice, Marcus. 
Shari Brasher: [00:30:30] He's a hall of fame. Dad, let me tell ya. 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:30:32] Oh, I love my little boy. The one that was crying in here. 
Dr. Sam Rhee: [00:30:35] when you look back and you compare your, time as a pro football player to now, what are your thoughts about injuries? Now, compared to the past. And what do you see as trends in athletes then and athletes now? 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:30:53] I went out as I looked at the game today, obviously modern medicine is so much better today in what used to have guys out an entire year or maybe a year and a half, all the stuff surgery.
They're back in a matter of a couple of weeks. the fact that guys are walking out of the house, rather the hospital, as opposed to, being put in a cast and immobilized for like almost, over a year with the leg atrophy to a point that you could barely recognize it. It has changed a lot. As far as myself was concerned, I was always a little different than, yeah. I always looked at it. I understood my body and I understood that football is very emotional, very physical game. and it could be, so I always thought it was very important to get away and really do, after the season was over, I really didn't do much physically. I allowed myself at least three months to do nothing. I just didn't gain any weight. 
Okay, because I felt that was, that is a lot more strenuous, a lot more difficult to do to get back into shape when you put pounds on. And so I relaxed, as opposed to today, after the super bowl, it's almost like a week later they're back working out. So there's a body ever arrests. they have OTA days and they're constantly working out year round. Again, I think it's too strenuous, a sport too physically demanding, emotionally demanding too, to be almost a year around sports. So I think it's important for that to know their own bodies, because what happens is you get, some of these, Trainers that, put everybody in a one size fits all program and everybody's different and stuff for me, I wasn't a big weightlifter.
I did martial arts and I did a lot of stretching, a lot of running. I did a lot of things regarding functional strength, and there's some guys that may work for me, but it may not work for them. So it's important really identifying the individual and what works for that person.
And for me, I understood my body more much better than the trainer did, And I think he, again, playing 16 years, it's almost that's an aberration. I think Frank Gore. Is the, I guess it's playing currently. And he may surpass me, but 15 years I think was the most finding, running back, in the history of the game.  but, and that hasn't happened very often. it's certainly a lot of luck that I was blessed because I had three, three knee injuries, but none that required surgery. and then I was back at it and stuff. but, and then the other thing was, I always felt like. One thing you have to do is understand the mental aspect of the game you never, ever think about injury ever.
You have to say to yourself, you're impervious to all that. And because I think those who think about it, usually it happens to them. 
Dr. Sam Jejurikar: [00:33:48] I love that mindset. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:33:52] That's great. 
Dr. Sam Jejurikar: [00:33:53] Yeah. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:33:56] we're, we're about running out of time here, 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:33:58] but let's just get started.
 Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:34:01] I'll tell you what we'll promise you. We'll have you back on that's for sure. 
HOFer Marcus Allen: [00:34:04] I'm feeling a little. patriotic right now.
Want to take this? We gotta take this group on tour so we can raise some money, guys. Thanks you guys very much. Thank you so much. 
Dr. Salvatore Pacella: [00:34:22] Thank you so much for taking your time on a Sunday and Sherry. Always a pleasure. We'll see you soon. 
Shari Brasher: [00:34:27] Okay.
Bye.