Dr. Joseph Thomas joins us to share about his life and practice as a Dentist and an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Resident. A graduate of Howard University College of Dentistry, Dr. Thomas accepted a Health Professions Scholarship to the United States Navy. Since graduating, Dr. Thomas has practiced in Great Lakes, IL, Okinawa Japan, and 29 Palms, Nevada. He is currently a 2nd year OMFS resident at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Thomas shares some of the struggles that come with completing dental school. He also talks about the incredible field of oral surgery and their vast scope of practice. In his free time, Joseph volunteers with Dental Helping Hands, a non-profit organization started by several of his classmates from HUCD which provides free dental care to developing and underserved communities around the world.
Are you or someone you know interested in Dentistry? Have you wondered what it’s like to serve in the Navy? Listen and share with someone you know.
TBDPis a volunteer passion project with the goal of inspiring all who listen. In-house music and audio production, so any ideas for improvements or suggestions for future guests are welcome. Visit www.StevenBradleyMD.com to learn more about our host. He is available for consultations regarding health equity or medical ethics, as well as for mentorship.
—
Â
Transcription
The black doctor’s podcast, i like the stories of minori professionals with the goal of inspiring others. You like we here to subscribe and share with other, because the next generation can be when you don’t see in every monday to hear our stories lowline back your black doctor’s podcast this week, i’m speaking with dr joseph thompson. He is a dentist serving in the united states navy he’s also in the middle of an world back location, surgicle, residency program. I’m so so excited to dig deep into that, and here his life story, r tomson. Thank you. So much for doing is oh happy to be here so plegon know to talk with you. I then follow your your podcast. He has some really good speaker, so suppose you to actually be here talking with you yeah yeah. We definitely have been by each other on social media and i’ve enjoyed seeing your progression through residency and super siento to figure out. You know what exactly you do and anyhow you got to this point in line sure we kin o talk about yeah so or thomson. When did you decide to come? Like dentist? Oh man, that’s a long story, so i decided to become a dicis after i honestly, i was trying to help one of my friends siblings. They were actually interested in dintistry. I knew i had a friend that was as a dentist and they asked me if i could set up like a shadow in for their sister, so i did that i went o while i was watching the dintist explained industry to her. I was like i to saco something that i that is interesting and you know you do a lot of good help. People and i started thinking about it. Then, and then i had opportunity to go on a humanitarian mission trip and saw them the dentist there treating the people, and it was just amazing that i really kind of like keep my interests and got me into the field of dintistry yeah. You were in college at this time. Yes, yes, i was coso, then after college you applied get accepted and you re at howard university college industry. What year did you graduate? I finished that hour and two thousand and fourteen y, a i finish, two thousand and fourteen. So we we, we were there to south yeah, okay, i was right there yeah. I knew we overlap, probably, but it had in the in the in the lounge a couple times yeah, because we probably were hawking your spot. Thank you for for seyo allowed to or your facilities, but this world yeah man you should probably at the smoker and the date auction yeah, of course, a wow, this small worker. I did not know that man good times, but why you so many stories there so many, but so durn your time at howard. You signed up for the navy health professional scholarship program, and why did you do that? So when i was so when i was going to school, i had finished college and i was trying to figure out my next move and i had he already had to some loans for school, but it wasn’t even a lot, but i was look when i started looking at the dinnis looking at the sup moles for dim stuff, i menace a lot of money to just come up out of your pocket on and i was looking at options and initially i wasn’t even considering the military. Both my parents were in the military in perforce my mom and dad were both air force and my mom was like: don’t join the military. My dad was like. Oh, you should do. It is great, a good idea, so you know ye. He had us conflict and when i was getting ready to do when i was taking the dat there’s a section that comes up hey, would you be interested and survey and the armed services? And i just clicked yes, because i was just trying to get to the test and not oh man, i just like yeah. Yes, i wasn’t really even thinking about it in a serious level, it was just kind of the back of my mind. I was saying either ways to figure out how to pay for gemahl, but you know the navy. The military is one, let me just say: hey i’ll, listen to their pitch and you know i’ll consider it. Otherwise i would just taking the loads out anyway. I took the dat and like within a week. I got something in the mail from the navy and i was like i had even got my sore back, my dad so i’m like, and there are already contact- and i i did you guys- get by school as frighted, and so they contacted me and i called the detailed whose card was there and we talk and it was just like you know, we kind of hit it off and i was on the fence actually about taking the scholarship cousin, because you be talking about the commitment i was like a. I don’t know if i want to do that, but i wind up side, a green to sign up, protect the scholarship and everything panned out and then i started at howard. It was great, it’s still so talking about howard. How was your time and dental school over some of the challenges that you faced? How er man how it was a great experience, but that word is, is to be used so many different variations, a bird, a moun aditi, you know, o you experience in itself was just amazing. Both my sisters went to pcs and i wanted to get the experience they didn’t go to hower, but i wanted to get the experience of going because all throughout my academic career, i had never really had professors that look like me, because my classes in the sciences, i mean they were all pretty much run by by people that didn’t look like me, but they actually, you know they care. They helped me reach my objectives and doing well on my programs, but it was just like you. I thought man. This would be a great opportunity to go somewhere where you have people that are in your corner, and you know they look like you and you’d be able to have that experience. So there were challenges at hower, because just there were first of all there as just a challenge of dental school and is of itself anywhere. You go. There’s the just like it’s a it’s a grind. You know a lot of a lot of mature. You have to learn and master, but there was also the other act resource that we didn’t necessarily have, and you have everything that we need. I felt but our faculty. They were hard working. We worked hard and you know i was able to complete my time there complete the curriculum successfully. So there was always a lose challenges, but it was a great experience o right. Otherwise, and i, if i had to do it over game and i got accepted to other schools, but i wouldn’t go to any other school by our yeah cat yeah. It’s honestly one of the best decisions i made list to go to our medical school yeah, because it’s the connections that you make like life long, the brotherhood, the sisters that i’m friends with the family, that i guess, if you form from that experience to be, is priceless as priceless. So can you break down kind of what you cover in dinner school? If you can summarize that we’ve got some premature, some high school students, even so in dental school, i mean so one of the pre racks for dental school. You know, obviously they want you to take the biology, gen kim organic kim. Some schools want biochemistry they want you to have physics at least one year calculus and then like a language than english. Contos are usually the basic pre rex in any dental school. So when you get into dental school, one of the keys, probably one of the most difficult classes that doesn’t seem as difficult on when you on the surface is anatomy. That’s like one of our beast classes, because it’s work a lot of credit hours, but when you’re studying at the lab and the actual class, it’s like really in depth, so you have to master the human body. You know the nerves, the functions, the physiology. So that’s one of the big courses, but you also take courses in just you. Do dital work like you start learning how to master and memorize the anatomy of the keep the functions of the tea, like the things that we take for granted when we eat and chew, and talk every day like the dimble school. You master all these fundamentals and you understand that the dem anatomy, in a way that it’s not covered in any other special act even in medicine. They don’t really cover it as in depth as we do, even though it’s a small area there’s a lot of intricacies to it. So we learned that we also cover like physiology, biochemistry so fundamental sciences that are you’re going to need. As you progress in to understand the like the disease pathologies behind, why people lose their teeth, why people have oral and gentle pathologies deformities and things like that, so it’s very rigorous science base course load, but is you learning and is very interesting? So it’s not boring and the good thing about dental that i like is you’re doing a lot of hands on you start to practice, cutting teeth like doing wax of some forming teeth so that you, like you, can see teeth in your in your sleep like you, i was breathing about teeth like you see them so much by you and so and you don’t understand it, but you look at it so much that when i you see somebody and you’re just talking to them, you can arter it automatically start to analyze and see like things at hack and help their smile or improve their aesthetics. Because you see what the ideal is like. So much that when you see somebody, that’s not necessarily ideal, you can see how you can help them. Yeah, that’s good! That’s a excellent breakdown, and i know i’m in to cesil ist. I don’t like secretions and a bad breath. How did you it tebron’s, a funny sort like the first time, but i was actually seeing a patient. It was. It was a weird. We start off. You know they don’t start you off o doing fili. They start you of doing some in simple, like cleanings right, so i was assigned this patient and it was this beautiful girl, like i don’t even know where she was from shoes. Some were from dc and i’m like. Oh so, okay, you did a cleaning great come on in, you know, got her in squirt talky whatever, and so you know it’s. Okay, let me get started to. She opens her mouth and she had halitosis and it just like because he like in my mind she was beautiful. You know, you’re talking to the show, remember like blew me away and i was like yo. Obviously i had my math going. I kept a professional. I was like okay, this is you know, so i proceed with her cleaning and and do it, but you know you have that. First, you know experience where you just hit with a bad breath, and you just kind of like realize is what i’m here for, and you look at it as you’re here professionally, because hey and you explain your afterwards like hey- do some better orahood tips and it’s like things that people don’t necessarily know because they’re not talked so. I say it like the breath. You know hit me and all that in a comical way, because i think it now and in sat was a funny experience. But you know they are people who don’t necessarily get this education and training that we consist sometimes that everybody should know, and so i might think after we did the it the cleaning with her. I i taught her about like how to maintain your all hygiene, because she said nobody ever told her. Nobody ben said anything to her about it, and so that’s a big thing that i really appreciate about howard, that we did put a lot of emphasis on educating under underrepresented communities and teaching them about like the importance of oral hygiene, so yeah my first time in encountering secretions in the world. My environment was definitely eye opening, but it’s something that i remember to this day. You know and i feel like i was able like hope, her and i grew as well. You know you change is ejector your her wife, exactly exactly after you finished on spot hower. You came on active duty with the nsana. Thank you for your service. No happy to sir, have a fair that were supposed to say i’ll, never know what people, what is that is yeah? That’s he that’s the normal. Like etiquette, you know, i thank you for your service. I’m saying i’m be saying my pleasure, like schickele yeah right right right. I agree. So what was your first assignment in the navy? Okay so after i finished dental school, like kind of like when you’re leading up to deal school, but once the navy’s tracking you all throughout, like your progress, and so once you get close to graduation they’ll, send you a packet like hey. You know your cosecant adulation. Congratulations! What would you like to do next? So they give you options. They’re, like hey, you re the two options that you s. Three options: you can go directly from dental school and you go to a duty station where they do was called credential and they. That means you go to a duty station and all you do is like really get good with your hands. Like your speed, you like seeing basic patients a lot of feelings and an ex lot of just feelings, basic feelings, right and maybe do a few crowns on and some into those kind of things hey, but you’re. Just doing this is just like you’re being trained right, there’s, not a that’s, not a course or any kind of program be just doing like. I usually had a recruit station where they get in a lot of recruits. So you have a high volume of people. You come in and treat them. The other options. Are you can do a aged where you get training, it’s like advance the train, advanced education and advanced education in general denistadt. You can do do that or you can do a gprs, which is a g pre. You doing a residency, it’s kind of like at a hospital base. Practice of denis try. So i chose to do an aged because i would have give me the opportunity to see a lot of patients, but you cover all the specialties and you’re. Not just like that. You are you pretty much limited to the hospital and you don’t get a lot of variety with patient care because you usually were working at a place where they have a lot of specialists, so they get the first pick of it the cases and you just get whatever they don’t want to do so i did my aged. I chose to do an ad and then they give you a list. You know the places and you rank them. So my where i was selected to go was to great lakes, which is the the navy. The navies are recruiting center, where all the people, all the enlisted, people that are during the navy. They go through mabel station, great lakes to enter into the navy, not for one year. Okay, so you finished in a school in the summer and then he you show up to great lakes. Oh sorry, so you go before that so yeah right ar okay. So you finish the for that year i graduated deal school and then you could have to before. You can go and start practicing as a even doing with the rest. The e you have to go to officer training school, and so i did. I think it was six weeks if at a base in rhode island- and it was pretty much like a vacation because you’re up there. This is where all the unities have their compounds, that everybody has a vote. It seems like and except me you know just like ye. These people are like living large, but it was really good. You learn king o, ah right, ki yeah, you know the place king ha. Yes, you can indoctrinated into the ways of the navy. They tell the get your uniform, you start doing. T they get you in a shape because, obviously you ar del school, you kind of don’t have time to work out as much as you want, because just essentially last year, you’re trying to get on a requirements, so they whip you in the shape and just like teachers, a ways of the navy and what you need to know like the protocols, the customs of habits and kind of turn, you into people who are going to be leading sailors under your command and then after i finished that six weeks, then i went to great lakes to start my residence at mag yaou. So you saw a bunch of patients. You got a pretty good variety of practice for the yeah yeah and then a man where do you go with the navy? So after that year i was like oh jine, dinnis ry was pretty cool and i wanted to you know, continue to do general densters. Just in the exposure, the age then i started. Thinking about like some of the other specialties that were available in do was actually really interesting. Initially, when i got thereo, but after doing the cases i was like, oh this isn’t cut. This is keep my interest enough and what is work and on anodons that’s the field of doing what they do. They treat the k keys whether the k has root reached the pope tissue and you can’t just do the feeling once the the pulp is in fact that you have to remove that pulp, and then you replace it with the inert material that allows the tooth structure to remain in place, but the tooth itself is devitalized and that’s what rue canals are indodana to rout canals their specialist and r canals yeat. So in italy i had an interest in that and i was like i that’s not it and i did something i did. I spent a couple months on oral surgery and i was like wow. This is actually pretty interesting, but i didn’t really get a chance to get in enough disposure to kind of like see the whole spectrum of it. So i was kind of like i just going to general denis try. So once you finish your aged year, be the navy. Comes to you like hey, we have what duty station would you like to go to next? They gave you a list of bunch of options and i didn’t want to go on a ship by myself, because i felt that was them like not so fun, but i did ask to go on a care, so they give you like five lifts, your top five, so i asked for two carriers i asked for lajune. I don’t know why i asked polagon as an ask for san diego, so everybody wants to go to san diego and then i put okana as my number five, because i was like a that sounds interesting. I’m on to go on a ship. That’s the only other thing i can do to fill out my list, but i ask for four other things and i’m sure i’m going to get and but i’ll put oken a alone just because so my detaile comes back and it’s like hey, that’s where you’re going and i’m like a ship like now you’re going to open out- and i was like so mad. I was like serious like not like that was number five. Like how did i get five and then the thing that may be mad because people in my program as the ranks uff that they got lower than where i ranked it man, that’s like that, doesn’t make sense like how are you giving them that they didn’t even rank it that high and they got it. But i rank these things in my number one, two and three and i ask for two carriers. They always seen people to go, caries right and now so here’s the funny thing about that. But, like two weeks later, that detainer called me on the phone and was like hey. You know. I know we asked you, you put your list, he wanted to go on a curio at some point. We said you t okana, so the guy that’s actually supposed to go on the carrier. He doesn’t want to go on the carrier anymore. He actually wants to go to a kanawah. Would you be interestin? I twitching. So in my mind, i’m like wait. We, i asked you at the beginning to give me that you did it so now. You want me to help you out to help somebody else out when you wouldn’t help me, and i was like no, you know ali told my family, that’s what i’m going and i’ve made a ve got accepted the reality of my mind. You know. I think i just want to stick with my night, where you sent me before, for my orders say and i was like, and then i got off the phone work through and, and i took out the phone like joe, why did you do that? I was like to body experiences like. Why would you do that, like they were gonna? Give you a chouan did stuff just people. Do you wrong is like no i’m not going to help. You help somebody else out you that way when a yes, a principle so anyway that kind of went down, but it round up being like the best decision i ever made in my life. That goes stick with my open all orders and go there because a d n i made friends for a lifetime. I got to work with some of the best oil serts in the navy and they were my mentors. They help put me on the path to getting into oral surgery, and i mean if i were to do it all over again. I would pick the okana nine ten times out of ten, because it was just a great experience. It’s awesome, so you got the additional exposure in oral surgery and then you applied and got into the navies or al servatory residency program and walter re is located in dc. So can you first start by explaining what orl max lopata surgery is? Okay, yes, of course yeah. So just a hero i did not get in on my first try actually a to apply a couple of times, because my orders been aligned up with the time that i wanted to go and like oh, we can’t break orders even though previously orders have been broken. A new, as in the nat, was like hey we’re, not breaking people or say, okay cool, so it was definitely a lot. There was a level of person vigors because after i didn’t get any of my my initial trials like to git it i’ll just do my time and get out, but in my mentor is like no don’t quit you’re, not. We did you’re, not a quitter joe you’re, going to do this at least give in on a shot, and so i did and then i was able to get in so yeah. I just appreciate it’s always important. Tis, a plug have good men towards that believe in you, because sometimes you won’t believe in yourself, but they know you and they’re going to push you and that’s that’s critical, so always keep that in the mind so anyway, so or surgy or max oficial surgery is a specialty that deals with all things that involved the head and neck region. Our main focus is on treating conditions that involved movement, sceleto movements. We treat patients that have sleep problems like what’s is typically identified: a sleep apnea, oh a obstructive, sneep appy. As the official term l. We also treat people that have domage ic pathology, so they can have cancers of the head and neck. Like people that have a history of smoking, tobacco use things like that they developed cancers of the tongue of the bone. So those are some of the major things. Well, people typically know oral surgeries as they’re. The people that do rut can ou or do not go out, do extractions of third molars and that’s what i only knew about them initially until i was able to get a broader, a level of exposure. That’s why i feel important to shadow people, shadow people that you that do what you think you want to do, because they’re going to help you to see all the different levels of that profession that specialty we also do in plants we place implants and the thing about oral surgery. That makes us kind of different from some of the other specialties that do implants is like we can do implants on people that don’t necessarily have bone there initially, so what we can do, we can go and augment a person’s mandible that may have had you. So when you lose teeth, you lose bones, and so you’ll have us called at a trophic and mandible. So your bow start. Your matable shrinks and size with and density, and so what we can do we can go in and do survey or we can do grafts. We can place the bone graass, which can be artisans, which means from yourself or it could be a tolias which, which means we can do the bone graph from like animals. They use like both vine bone graph materials or we take like we do all taliga. We take it from you. We can take a graph materials from your hips or from other areas in your body that have x bomb and we can build up your mandible with graphs and help you to have a place on. Then we can put in plants, so you can have teeth and then we can put like a will work with the procedat and sometimes or general, dennis to make a prosthetic dentures that go on top of the implants and restore persons like a billy to c solid foods and also the good thing about what we do when we restore teeth. That also changes your fate, your face, i revitalizes your face because people lose teeth their mouth, their face tissue. They have what’s called redundant tissue that collapses and it makes you look older than you really are, and so we help to restore patients smiles and been like with the bold movements patients, people that have get into facial deformities like they may have like a real long, mandible or long bottom jaw or short man able, but we can do surges or well detach your bones and we reposition them so that they’re more aesthetically pleasing, but they also optimize and put you in correct function so that your bite is normal. So, like we do that, we had. We also work with kids that may be born with craniofacial deformities. So we do a wide variety of those type of surgical procedures which deal with the manipulation of the bone. But we also do soft tissue movement, so we do nose. Reconstruction jobs is called. We also do autoplastic, like some person. That may not be happy with the position of their ears. We is that be cosmetics also involves us doing, faith slips like so when people like start getting a lot of like wrinkles on their face. We do, we can do both taks. We can stretch their reposition of the skin on their face, remove or dunant tissue and tying things up like specially. They get like sagging eylids a lot of their brows get real precy. So we do a lot of a wide spectrum. I’m not even touching everything that we do, but that’s like the main areas that we work in in oral surgery, yeah, and how long is the residency training program corese program? They have to track. You have a four year tracks where you get it, i paying a certificate at the end of your four years and then there’s the six year track where you obtain an md degree along with at the completion of your program. So then you’re like a medical doctor and dentist. You already have your ds and you have your md, but the thing is like the programs, you basically are learning the same material except the the m d, the people that do the seer program. They do the last two years of medical school and they take steps one two and three for us part of our program, for if you do just a four year program, we have to do a test that similar to step one as part of my admissions process. So any time you come into oil surgery there that missus test is a test is called the cbs, but it’s basically a step step one, and so you have to do good on that so yeah. So we do that. So, yes, so pretty much. And then, after you finish your e, your oil surgery program, whether you do the four or six year program, we all take the same board. So we learn that we have to. The board covers the same material, whether you go six years or four years, yeah! That’s a lot! That’s a very exhaustive, listen and bousy! I didn’t i didn’t train with. We didn’t have or max el faceful surgeons, where i went to residency. So i didn’t learn about the field really. Until i came back to duty yeah, we do a lot, it’s a lot that we cover. I mean, and but it’s very rewarding when you’re like changing people’s lives. Like i mean you can’t even imagine like people that that they have a dental face for the forties, they can’t chew because, like a pe persons born with the open bite and their teeth aren’t connected, and we can’t people that come into our office, you know sometimes they come in for these surgeons kind of like i just want to be able to chew a sandwich and be able to bite it and be able to eat out in public. You know, and i have to cut my my foot and little pieces to chew, and so just little things like that and people that have like cancers and things like that being able to do the resections. It’s just amazing, just touching lives, the way that we were able to yeah and, of course, the highlight of your your residency training is the six months that he’s been doing in a ts right, yes, so that was that was the best part of my training. So far, and a season was great- i mean he’s- definitely like a definitely got a obtained, a whole new level, love respect for the complexities of anastasia, even in medicine we do a rotation, internal medicine, and i just like i was just astounded, like some of my colleagues that i worked with. They were just so sharp just all of the material they had to know about such a broad spectrum of diseases and conditions. You know just so we can stabilize and optimize people. Is it’s amazing what were doctors doing so it definitely gives me a lot right had a lot of respect for doctors anyway, but just like once you see it up close and when you’re working with the interacting with them, it’s like wow, i go. We definitely have to have a lot of respect for the that field as well. Positions is dentista our doctors. So yes, yes, just at fine comment, my yeah at thank you appreciate that. I appreciate that i recently came of vast surgery because you were rated about that on social media. Talk about that, because you seem to really enjoy it yeah. So i got. I w s, i have the opportunity to spend a month on vascular surgery, and it was just amazing just like what they do. I mean because they’re pretty much like you know, everybody thinks that they’re, the people that that come in emergency and fix things, because that’s kind of like for oral surgeons, we’re like the people and the emergency hospital setting like we will go. The er docks will call us to help with their cases. You know pacaset that have had car motor vehicle accidents or gunshot wounds to the face. You know we’ll be that person that they call so, but the bascule search is those guys are like amazing, like every service in the hospital, for the most part, calls them for consuls like the necrologist and you have apait is cardiologist, like all these services were calling them, because any time you ever ortho patients that may have ortho issue like in you have, or even doctors or like some of the specialties, would be going in for surgery and if they had an incident where they make the artery or something like that or something that happens, then we were always on stand by, for we were on standing back for those case or cases that they thought may be difficult because they had like a rapper response team like hey something happened and one of the surgeries one day when we were getting ready to get off and they clim came by and called our fellow like hey, we had emergency, we need you and they’re like spot. They just go in there on the spot and just help and fix and to help resolve the situation fix whatever has been injured or damage, and they really are very good at what they do. So it was just amazing just to watch and help out like it was just amazing experience, yeah, so sokol thompson. You know, you’ve had quite the incredible career since you’ve finished dental school m. Looking back was, would you go down? The same course? Would you still have joined the navy in retrospect? What i taught yes, i would definitely a join the navy and the reason why i would say that is because, like the friends that i have made in the navy, first of all, i love the opportunity always wanted to serve my country. There was a time when i want to serve in a combatant role like i was in. We dreamed about thinking about being a seal. The thing i was like hay, you know it’s better, the like save life, then tessa maybe take it, and so that kind of transition happened about life and always still wanted to serve, and when this opportunity to serve my country came up, i mean i was elated that it worked out and so yes to say, do it all again. I would because he served the country that you’re a part of, but also the friends that i’ve made in the navy they’re. Not even friends y were like my family, like i can go anywhere in the country were in the world. Actually, right now, and i know people that are like you know, i can go and they’ll take me in like their brother, their cousin. You know like family, and i just i and a good thing about it too, because the navy is so the military and general is so diverse. He work for people from all different, like cultural, racial, ethnic backgrounds, and so you learn that hey. This is how america is like it’s that that first area, you learn how to work with people that may not necessarily have the same belief that you have, but we have a common goal and we’re all working to serve our country with it. Easy was everything always fair. No, of course not. I mean that’s kind of like any job that you have, and especially in the military, but you know you kind of like learn to enjoy the suck. You know it is i i don’t like this, but you know you look at what you’re doing and when you’re working when you’re doing it with other people they get. You know you build that bond that come rodere and you know you move forward and you get through it like you that wasn’t so bad we survive. You know you move forward and it makes you stronger. I just think, as far as learning how to the principles of the military, you know really really teach you and help you to become a better person for me, and so, if i want to do everything over again to even if i had the money out to pay for dinner school, i think i would have taken the opportunity to enjoy the military, because just it chaves my life yeah, that’s good and i think in addition to serving your country, you have committed to serving those or less fortunate, and you do so by participating you’re on the board of a charitable organization called gentile helping hands. Can you tell us about that? Yes, yes, of course yeah. I am and that’s just a a prile, an opportunity. A couple of my classmates that i went to howard with we. They started the before this, this organization, that does that gives back. We have a history of doing mission trip umanitari trips to under serve population groups, they’ve gone to several islands in the caribbean. I had opportunity to go to a couple of countries in africa, which i cannot name at this time, but we were able to go and do some really amazing work for people who are people. You know the people that you know where we came from and to be able to go back and to touch lives and to be a post and pack of people that you know just need and their appreciative. They was just so thankful for what we did yeah. That was just so. We do that as a as our organization. We take donations to give back to these different new al parts of the country, not the country of the world, where you have people that don’t have necessary to access to health care that we have here in america, and it’s always good to get back just because it helps you to stay in touch with with others and his be kills that compassion, your heart, giving back to others yeah, it’s good. Thank you! So much for sharing to you tom i per come on the show. Thank you for your service. I’ve definitely learned a lot about the builder ex olaca surgery. We thank you for having me i’ll, be happy to come back any time and get me have questions or for anybody that context you that may have contact of questions. Please feel feed. It refer to me and i’d be happy to how about ye. How can people get a hold of you or find out more about you or de organization did to up an git, so we have a website. I can i’ll make sure i give that information to you as you can like a post and, and i’m also on on instagram baseball social media platforms plain i have time to be like i used to just start to keep you pretty busy, but i i typically can respond to our responsive messages, or you can also my my gmail or email you can. I can always be reached an email as well, so i can not provide you all my contact information so that you can make that a man licol all right o time to. Thank you so much o o. Thank you. Capitin black doctor’s podcast, not probe, volunteer passion project. The bull inspiring all is in next week for another episode, lakists bradley your friendly neighbor, a