Interview Summary
Solidarity HealthShare’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Oertle joins Molly Smith on From The Median to discuss what happens when a patient doesn’t fall into the “One Size Fits All” approach to treating ailments in general medicine and how there might be another way.
Interview Transcript
Announcer #1 (00:00):
The following program is sponsored by Cleveland right to Life and is responsible for its content.
Announcer #2 (00:07):
Welcome to From the Median, a daily report from the frontline of the pro-life movement, discussing two worldviews that are driving our culture in opposite directions. From the median asks, which side of the road are you on? What direction do you want our culture to go? Tune in as we plan the route that takes us back to the culture of life. And now your host Molly Smith.
Molly Smith (00:29):
Good evening and welcome to From the Median where we are concerned with the middle ground, not just to understand both sides of an argument, but also to awaken the consciences of those who are neutral or indifferent to this, the greatest civil rights movement of all times the Pro-Life Movement. Listeners, as always, thank you so much for joining us. It’s great to have you with us. We have got a wonderful guest joining us right now. Dr. John Oertle is the, he is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Solidarity HealthShare, and you are very familiar with Solidarity HealthShare. If you listen to our program, of course, they are one of our major sponsors for the program. We are so thankful to them because right at the beginning they saw what we were doing and they stepped in and said, we want to help. We want to get this message out there. Very pro-life organization. Very, very, very Godly in the way they approach medicine. And so I am so thrilled to have Dr. Oertle with us. And we’re going to be talking about a really, really interesting topic today. Dr. Oertle, of course, as I said, is the chief medical officer for Solidarity, so he’s very well placed to talk about this issue. Firstly, before we go any further, John, thank you so much for joining us,
Dr. John Oertle (01:39):
Molly. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Molly Smith (01:41):
Absolutely. Okay, so let’s just jump right in. We’ve got a lot to cover. We’re going to be talking about a very interesting subject and it is, I’m going to have you explain to people exactly what this is. Of course, it is precision medicine or personalized medicine and it seems to be almost like a new facet of medicine that’s coming up. Am I correct? Could you explain to us, and is this something new
Dr. John Oertle (02:09):
Field of what’s called personalized and precision medicine? And what this is, is that we’ve had so much technology, we’ve had so much technology as far as research and development and new data regarding how our bodies work and our genome and the trans genome as far as how the body, why do genes turn on and turn off and why do they actually work the way that they do in epigenetics and in this whole dynamic, when you actually are looking at, there’s a lot of patients that get what’s called the standard of care. And the standard of care works for a lot of people. And this is what traditional insurance is going to be covering. This is what a lot of doctors are actually going through as far as this goes. But when you have, that’s about 80% of the population will respond effectively to a standard of care process and protocol.
(03:00):
But when you’re on a- I always say the vulnerable populations that get these chronic diseases or again, terminal diseases and they are not responding to that standard of care for people that don’t respond to the standard of care though, which is about 20% of the population, those individuals, these are vulnerable people that when they don’t respond to the standard of care and insurance is covering the standard of care, your doctors are prescribing that medication based upon the standard of care. This is where it’s just a general population study as far as that goes. So when you don’t respond that 20% those chronic diseases, the terminal diseases, now you’re left with being able to, a lot of patients don’t have options or they’re left with paying out of pocket for those options. And this, it’s a concerning thing because when you actually are then looking at what are the individual ways that the body is responding either genetically or looking at these deeper levels of what’s going on with the body, now you’re basing your treatment plant off of the individual.
(04:07):
And this just doesn’t happen in the basic insurance, medical insurance complex model. And this is where Solidarity, we actually support that doctor patient relationship. We support that provider that’s going to try to do those other tests to be able to see, look deeper, look how your body responding to the medications that you’re on or how is the body responding and why is the disease continuing to persist and not responding to the treatment plan that you’ve had already. And so this is where as technology has grown, we’ve seen that outcomes get better when it’s based around the individual person. And I’ve been doing this at a high level for a long time now, and we see that patients respond from a medical side. We see that patients respond effectively when you’re actually basing it upon individuals. I’ll give this example, and I love this because it’s, again, it’s right in line with being pro-life.
(05:01):
We’re pro-life at the beginning of life when you’re for the unborn and we’re pro-life when you’re sick and you need restorative and life-affirming options. But I had a patient give this example who was 70 years old and he had been to prestigious cancer centers all across the country and he had non-small cell lung cancer, which is a lung cancer that again, very aggressive and it was all over the body and he was being told by his oncologists to be able to go home and go to hospice. There was nothing that they could do for him. And then any other treatment that they would perform would only make the situation worse and wouldn’t make it better. He came out to see us and we ran thousands of biomarkers and looked at his genetics and looked at how his cancer was responding and how it was moving.
(05:48):
And he actually had really good targets still left to be able to treat the cancer. And when we actually gave him the chemotherapies and we gave him the actual support and the holistic support that I provided within two months, he was actually in complete remission. This was two years ago and he’s still alive today. And this is where when you’re able to actually see that this is the kind of care that can be possible, that is pro-life. And this is where when we are left with this shading of, again, this pro-death culture, I think I talked about this last month, about this pro-death culture that we’re up against. And we see this at the edge of viability at the early set of time of when we are conceived and when we’re for the unborn. But we see this also with the elderly or the vulnerable populations where these options are beautiful and technology exists to be able to give treatment that’s designed around the patient and yet, our insurance company doesn’t support that.
(06:47):
And so this is where Solidarity comes and says, we want to be able to support that doctor and the patient to be able to make best decisions for them and use the technology. And we’ve partnered with a number of labs in the United States with Solidarity to be able to do this for patients and doctors all across the country to be able to make sure that we’re able to actually deliver this kind of healthcare. And it’s important because when your life, life depends on it, especially the terminal illness, that’s when you need it the most. And you want a system that’s able to fight with you and work with you to be able to restore your health and to be able to support you or at least give you options with your doctor and you to be able to make the best decisions for your own self.
Molly Smith (07:28):
So John, tell me, how do you actually service people with this kind of medical protection around them? Because normally what we do is we go to the doctors when we are sick or when we want to have, excuse me, I’m going to go for my checkup. If we’re not part of this whole system that Solidarity has put into place what would normally happen? What would be the difference between what Solidarity would do and what the regular system would do?
Dr. John Oertle (08:05):
Yeah, that’s a great, well, similar to that gentleman, unfortunately, that gentleman was not a part of Solidarity who I was alluding to, and his insurance was covering that standard of care and when he came to see us, he had to pay cash for those services because he wasn’t a part of Solidarity. And this is where when you are a part of Solidarity, we are working with providers who are doing this level of medicine to be able to make sure that you’re able to get that care that you need. So in this case, again, many times when you don’t have Solidarity and you need that support or say for instance, your child comes down with autism and you’re looking for other options for your child with autism, and again, it could have been from a vaccine injury, it could have been from other dynamics, and you’re wanting to be able to actually explore how can I actually support my child?
(08:54):
See, this is where I give this example that I really believe firmly that God has created our bodies so beautifully and it’s complex and actually the more data we know, the more complex our bodies are. But when you’re able to firmly understand the individual when maybe just that baseline just, yep, this is the standard, go through physical therapy, yes, go through physical therapy, but let’s actually discover it. Let’s see what else is going on. Many times these children have heavy metals in higher levels than in the actual population. And this is something that should be explored. Now we say when you are removing identifying obstacles to healing and supporting the body with what they need to be able to heal, now you start to give people and the human body the ability to start healing. And I always say this too, is that one of the obstacles that I love to mention is sometimes being, again, understanding the role of spirituality and in the role of healthcare is forgiveness.
(09:56):
Being able to forgive that can be an obstacle. So you have all these other obstacles, but again, bodily, you want to be able to remove what is an assault, clean up the GI tract, being able to remove any of the actual obstacles that may be present that are creating a difficult time for the body to heal. And when you do that, that’s when you’re actually practicing personalized precision medicine at the best and you’re giving the body that opportunity to be able to heal. And that becomes very encouraging and empowering the people and patients. And this is what we love to support at Solidarity to give those options because again, those people are worth fighting for.
Molly Smith (10:34):
Absolutely, absolutely. And I love the way you started the whole interview here with me saying this is a pro-life issue. I mean, if we do not take care of everything that God has given us, then that’s a problem. And if there is a problem that has been created, we need to try to find out what it is and how do we treat it.
Dr. John Oertle (10:54):
That’s exactly right. And I love this because as Christians, as Catholics, we are at the forefront of we have been at the forefront of good medicine. We’ve been at the forefront of good being able to fight for the vulnerable populations. And I love this because this is where you really, again, the rubber meets the road with our culture to say, you know what? There can be good options that exist. I do have a doctor that wants to continue to be able to fight. That’s the other thing is being an advocate for yourself to find good doctors. Yeah, absolutely. That are actually willing to fight for you as well. Certainly we do this at a high level out here in Arizona, but again, it’s one of these areas where at Solidarity we support these doctors that are actually serving patients with the love that they actually were called to do, to be able to be able to serve their patients and make sure that they’re getting well.
(11:45):
So it is a dynamic, whereas a patient I certainly advocate for if you’re running up against the road of where do I go, what do I do, keep fighting, keep praying, the Lord will provide those options. But again, I would say right now, get to Solidarity Healthshare because one, get on Solidarity so you can have options if these conditions ever happen in your life because absolutely one of the things that we always think is that it’s not going to happen to me. And unfortunately it does. And when it does and when you become chronically ill or autoimmune or neurological issue or something that is outside of that standard of care that’s not getting you well, you want that individualized option to be able to have for you so that you can actually have it be shared into by Solidarity in its community and make sure that you’re getting the best support that you can.
Molly Smith (12:37):
Exactly. And your example is a very good one because if we wait until things have really collapsed, we’re looking at not the best outcome. If we are really well prepared before we go into life, so to speak, we will have a much better option to do what God wants of us. So I look at that and I think there’s so many right now, and you and I spoke about this just before we came on the air. So people, and I cannot tell you how much trust has been lost by the general population into with regards to medical support and medical help and doctors and all the rest of it. But I think this is something that will start to replace that because if we can say to people, look, here’s how we can help you. This is what we can do. I think it would make such a big difference.
Dr. John Oertle (13:41):
And Molly, you base it on data. This is where it’s so good because when you’re basing your medical treatment off of data, and not just everybody’s data from general big pharma statistics, but you’re basing it upon your individual personalized data as far as testing and what is your body giving me to be able to say, how is your body responding to this process right now? And you’re making decisions and personalized plans based upon you as an individual that restores trust because you’re basing it upon yourself and the data that your body’s giving me, not on a population study and population statistic that is very diverse and this is where it’s based upon you and your child. And that is very, very important when you’re able to make decisions based upon yourself and not just, this is what the system tells me that the medication that I should go on to treat this disease, or in the case of covid, what medication I shouldn’t go on, no kidding for this disease.
(14:44):
And this is where when you have a doctor to be able to say, let’s run tests, let’s evaluate, it’s very simple and run the best tests that we can to be able to actually evaluate where’s those root causes, where are the actual these obstacles to healing that are occurring and then developing a plan around that. That is where you are going to be able to really restore that confidence and finding those doctors that’ll do that, finding the systems that are going to help to pay for that like Solidarity HealthShare to be able to move forward in that, I think is just a huge opportunity for individuals.
Molly Smith (15:16):
One of the things, as I was reading through some of the data that you’d given, you’d sent to me, one of the things that struck me is it’s, it’s personalized care, but precision care, which is the article that I read, was about the fact that you’ve got to be careful about calling it personalized care because it gives the wrong impression. But if you talk about precision care a little bit, it’s more inclusive of everything. But one of the things that struck me about that is looking at a group of people and saying, here’s the genetics that we’ve noticed that are not going to fit into the standard care. What came to my mind at that point was we know for a fact, John, that if a woman takes the pill, the contraceptive pill, there is a huge risk of them forming breast cancer, but not everybody forms it. Not everybody gets breast cancer from the pill. Would that be somewhere that we could say to women, if you want to know whether or not you are one of those people that will get breast cancer from using the pill, is that somewhere that you could say, okay, let’s look at the genetics around this person.
Dr. John Oertle (16:37):
Well, so you can run your genetics and find individuals that would be at a higher risk. You can do that. But I would also recommend though, don’t get on the pill because even if you’re not a genetic higher risk, no, I would say this because even if you’re not at a higher genetic risk, you will still be at a risk because of that pill increasing the actual risk of breast cancer, not just for those, even genetically. But that’s one of those examples too, being able to treat people. I say this, I mean, this is where doctors should treat people as people, not as just another system just to be able to say, oh yeah, just go on the pill and everybody gets the pill. Instead of actually saying, okay, hold on. You are a individual human person. And discuss that and discuss those risk factors and being able to say, this is not healthy for you, but let’s find other deeper ways as far as why maybe that maybe a young girl has acne maybe, or why are you actually, there’s so many other side effects to the pill.
(17:42):
There’s weight gain, depression. So this is where instead of actually just putting somebody on another medication that is not going to be in line with their body, which again, the pill many times is not in line with the actual patient’s body and they have a difficult time processing it out, and that causes a lot of side effects and a lot of issues going forward. This is where this is a part of the precision medicine of a good doctor to say, I’m going to only do things that are going to help support you in this. And yes, you can run genetic testing to be able to see is your body at a higher risk for cancer or not. But I would say even that, don’t go on the pill because there’s other ways to treat, and you can look at this as far as how can you support the liver to be able to actually help metabolize those different things as far as you can change lifestyle, diet, you can go on things to be able to help support whatever it is that you’re going on the pill in the first place, I would say, why are you having acne?
(18:40):
Why is the actual body diverse responding in this way so that that way you can actually help to restore this system within the body. And so anyways, I don’t like the pill. Obviously I’m not a fan of the pill. I think it’s one of these examples of doctors just prescribing because that’s what everybody does, and they’re not thinking, they’re not actually treating their patients as you.
Molly Smith (19:02):
It’s each way to get through and you’re using a standard. That’s why it came to mind was this whole idea of standardized medicine because you say, well, the standard treatment of this is this, so you just give it to people. And I’m a hundred percent against the pill because I’ve seen so much damage that it’s done. And some of the side effects you just mentioned, this is exactly what happened. So the whole thing starts to spiral downwards. It’s terrible.
Dr. John Oertle (19:29):
So I’m against sometimes root cause is coming off of the pill so that you can actually have a good mental health. Maybe the issue is, and I always say this, maybe the issue is that a young girl is living with their boyfriend and now she’s anxious and there’s anxiety and she can’t sleep. Okay, so what is the root cause of this? Let’s get out of this state of let’s actually be healthy in our relationships. Let’s being able to get off of the pill so we can actually be healthy and have good medicine and good healthcare. So this is where all of that is. It takes a good doctor to listen to understand root causes and being able to move forward in recommendations to be able to say, you know what? There are better ways because your health is worth it. And that’s where, yes, that’s the precision use technology, but let’s also use common sense in our beautiful understanding of faith and reason to be able to make sure we’re using best judgments and being able to help people get out of these difficult situations. Oftentimes a pill just doesn’t help.
Molly Smith (20:33):
No, absolutely. And oftentimes, sometimes people who are having problems with, because they’re on the pill, are then trying all kinds of almost wacky solutions to trying to get back their weight back down and becoming vegans. And I’m not saying everybody that’s a vegan is on the pill. I’m just saying that these are some of the things that I’ve personally heard that people are doing. So it’s just like, oh my goodness gracious me. Let’s just do what God wants us to do and we’ll be fine, honestly, and true.
Dr. John Oertle (21:04):
Be in line with God’s plan for our body. That is exactly right. And technology is great because it helps us to understand how our bodies are made. Exactly. And we know that we become more and more as technology has increased, we have understand that we are very different, each individuals made uniquely with our own blueprint and our own genetics and that we respond differently. And so that’s how medicine should be deployed is this individualized, personalized way where when things are not working the way that they need to, we need to look at that personalized, individualized way so we can actually restore how God wants our bodies to be, which is, again, that’s good medicine.
Molly Smith (21:44):
Absolutely. If people want to get hold of you or Solidarity HealthShare rather to do more exploring. If they’re not on Solidarity HealthShare right now and not using the beautiful service that you provide, what do they do?
Dr. John Oertle (22:01):
I would recommend going to our website at solidarityhealthshare.org and looking us up and looking at the other, the plans that we have to be, the programs that we have for healthcare sharing to be able to become a part of our community so that you can, again, have these resources and we have at Solidarity, we have Care Navigators to be able to, again, if you’re looking for care, we’ve got providers across the country to be able to get in touch with, to be able to make sure that we’re able to offer this level of care. And certainly, again, join the community. It’s an exciting time for people and in medicine, and there’s an exciting time as Catholics and Christians of Faith to be able to come together and actually support each other in our healthcare.
Molly Smith (22:45):
And one of the other wonderful, wonderful perks that you get when you go to Solidarity HealthShare, you join a family of prayer. I mean, really and truly, this is what I love, is that there’s an opportunity for you to pray for the other members of Solidarity who are participating, who are members of Solidarity. You can form a prayer group, you can be praying for the members of Solidarity HealthShare. So there’s just so many incredible things that you gain when you go to Solidarity HealthShare. So I’m a bit biased, I must say, but that’s okay. And I’ve been working with Solidarity now for a number of years, and I have not. It’s been phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. You can go onto our website too, from the median.org, and you’ll be able to pick up all the information there. It’s right there on the homepage, you’ll see Solidarity Health share. Please consider it if you have not already, consider being a member of Solidarity Health Share and use them as your insurance provider. John, it’s been as always, such an honor to speak with you. Thank you so much. Keep up the great work. God bless you. Thank you, Molly. Have a great day. Same to you. Bye-Bye. Don’t go anywhere. I will be back with you right after this very short break with another World-class inspiring guest.
