May 2020
Joel Hancock, PGY4
About
Hometown: West Weber, Utah
Medical School: University of Utah
Favorite surgery: robotic pyeloplasty
Hey Joel, thanks for agreeing to this socially distant sit down. I hope things are going well, what are you up to now?
Haha, thanks. I'm on peds now which has been pretty calm with Carmen (the pediatrics fellow) and I switching off. You know, there's the usual morning consult or two, but nothing too bad. We have a neonatal nephrectomy this week that I'm excited about.
Great! I heard that you have some exciting news for the Department. Your paper titled, "Urological In-Flight Medical Events on Commercial Airlines" is coming out in the May issue of the Journal of Urology. It has gotten quite a bit of attention and was selected as one of the month's CME credit articles. Congrats! Can you tell the department your main take-aways?
Well, I'm quite the researcher...NOT! Thanks to Wilson and Dr. Hsi, we got a cool paper accepted to JU. It pays to have good mentors and collaborators.
I'd say the main take-aways (not to give anyone an unfair advantage with answering this month's CME questions) are the following:
1. Urologic inflight emergencies are rare on commercial airline flights
2. The most common complaints were suspected UTI/LUTS and urinary retention
3. Acute urinary retention was the most common cause of flights being diverted
I look forward to reading it this month and to your future work! Speaking of which, what are your plans for the future?
I recently signed a contract for a job in Twin Falls, Idaho. I'll be the 4th Urologist in the group. I'll focus on general Urology with an emphasis on cancer and robotics. It's a town of ~100,000 people but due to surrounding rural areas it serves ~250,000 people. It is close to home for my wife and I ... but not too close ;). My family and I are very excited for the new adventure. And, thankfully, Twin Falls has a Costco and a Target, so my wife was totally on board.
The group will also be looking for a new partner in the next year or two ... so I may be back recruiting.
Haha, we'll be sure to keep the word out. To change gears a bit, we know you're a father of four. Can you introduce them and explain how you have gotten through residency with 4 kids?!
My kids:
1) Noah is the oldest and just turned 9 in April.
2) Taggart (Tag) is 6 and looks like a Tennessee hillbilly with the amount of teeth he is missing currently.
3) Grace is my only girl and is 4 years old. She has me wrapped around her little finger.
4) Ford is the "boss baby" and is almost 2. He weighs more than Grace.
Having kids is no different than having a dog or cat. You need to feed it once in a while, clean up its messes, and let it play outside routinely. That's pretty much it.
My wife's name is Caitlan and she's a superstar! I joke (but seriously believe) that if you include me, she is a single parent of 5 kids - one just works outside the home. Without her, we wouldn't be where we are. We've been married for 12 years and I've loved every minute of it! We had our first kid before I took the MCAT in undergrad, so we've had children throughout the whole process. It's just normal for us; we have a routine. I believe it would be a lot more difficult to start having kids in residency.
As a resident and father, I think I am more effecient than I would be otherwise. I try to finish all my work while I am at work in a timely fashion. That way I can go home and focus on being husband and dad. Also, having kids has changed my priorities when it comes to career choices. I see Urology as an enjoyable job that will allow me to provide a blessed lifestyle for my family and be able to give back to those less-fortunate.
I think I speak for all of us (except Josh and Caroline, maybe) when I say that we don't know how you did it! Last question, how are you wrangling all four of them during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Well, I have a lot more respect for public education and the educators ... let's just leave it at that.