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Episode 302: Medical Miracles

>>Rick Crosslin: On this episode of Indiana Expeditions we’ll take a look at the marvelous world of modern medicine, a world where robots perform surgery, disabilities become ability, and doctors become wrestlers.

>>Announcer: Indiana Expeditions with Rick Crosslin is made possible through the generous support of: the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, dedicated to improving the lives of patients and the communities we serve, the Dr. Laura Hare Charitable Trust, enhancing Indiana’s natural environment through preservation and protection of ecologically significant natural areas, and promoting environmental education, stewardship and awareness; and The Indiana Academy of Science, serving Indiana Science since 1885.

>> Rick Crosslin: Energy is the ability to do work. One of the earliest forms of energy was moving water, like you see right here. Gravity is pulling this water down, and that turns stored energy into kinetic energy. And when things are moving we can make them do work for us.

>>Rick Crosslin: Welcome back to another episode of Indiana Expeditions. Today science is taking on pro wrestlers, and I know who’s going to win: Science!

>>Narrator: Every challenge has its arena. In every arena there are warriors; their foes, intimidating.

>>Cargo: Get that camera off of me.

>>Narrator: But their resolve is unwavering.

>>Dr. Chuck: we’re going to be putting the hurt on a few kids.

>>Narrator: Born with their own challenges that they conquer every day, these kids prepare for battle.

>>Rick Crosslin: You just give the word and we’re in there, is that a deal?

>>Girl: yeah.

>>Rick Crosslin: Ok. If things start getting rough you just call for the Science King.

>>Narrator: Here at the Timmy Takedown Dr. Chuck, a.k.a. Dr. Doom, and the menacing Cargo put on a battle royal to raise awareness for these tiny tenacious warriors.

>>Cargo: I’m Cargo, this is Dr. Doom. Someone’s going to get hurt.

>>Narrator: This year, the Science King and his court are throwing their hats into the ring. Watch out Dr. Doom, science is coming for you.

>>Rick Crosslin: Here in Indianapolis the Timmy Foundation prepares to kick off its annual Timmy Takedown, a wrestling event that draws a crowd every year. To find out more I caught up with Dr. Doom himself.

>>Rick Crosslin: Well, I’m here with Dr. Chuck, a.k.a. Dr. Doom. Chuck, you don’t look like you’re doing any medicine today. What in the world is going on?

>>Dr. Chuck: Well, we’re going to go out and we’re going to let some these kids that I see in the clinic every once in a while, we’re going to see if they can take us down. We’re going to raise some awareness and at the same time raise some kids up over our heads and throw them down.

>>Rick Crosslin: Through carefully practiced moves, and a little slight of hand, these kids perform the impossible. But sometimes even strength and cunning aren’t enough.

>>Cargo: I’m not going over! I’m not going over!

>>Rick Crosslin: Can I see a 3

>>Cargo: This won’t work.

>>Cargo: no, no, no, no!

>>Rick Crosslin: Science, Science rules again!

>>Rick Crosslin: The mastermind behind this therapeutic theater is Dr. Chuck. When not playing the part of a pro wrestler, Dr. Chuck is a pediatric rehabilitation specialist at the Easter Seals Crossroads Rehabilitation Center. What that means is he specializes in helping children with disabilities. Dr. Chuck got the idea for the Timmy Takedown 14 years ago when one of his patients found out that Dr. Chuck was once a pro wrestler and wanted to try it.

>>Dr. Chuck: I popped him up out of the chair and though, ah it won’t hurt him. So I grabbed him in a reverse headlock and flipped him over onto the mat, dropped him back here and I sit up and he’s sitting, he’s lying there laughing so hard he can hardly breathe and I sit up and look and mom and dad who had this look on her face like what the heck is it? Well, the next month we had our first pro wrestling clinic where we got more and more kids out of their chairs and put the walkers and crutches aside and they got to be pro wrestlers.

>>Rick Crosslin: Being a pro wrestler for a day is obviously a lot of fun for these kids. But if you ask Dr. Chuck, it’s a lot more than that. >>Dr. Chuck: I can’t tell you how great this energy is. I mean, I love these kids. They make me a better person. I like hanging out with them. I love giving them an opportunity to show their ability, cause I think a lot of times people focus on their disability. Every person who’s ever come here thinking I was crazy or that these kids, you can’t possibly

do that ended up leaving and saying that was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. How many kids in the Indianapolis area can say they’ve been a pro wrestler? I only know about 12. That’s the idea.

>>Caroline: Did you know, the Easter Seals Crossroads Rehabilitation helps over 4,000 children with disabilities each year.

>>Rick Crosslin: From the wrestling room to the classroom Chuck Dietzen’s all about using science and technology to fight medical battles. Let’s go check it out.

>>Rick Crosslin: For Dr. Chuck, being a teacher is a very natural thing to do.

>>Dr. Chuck: I think anybody who’s passionate about what they do, ultimately they become a teacher. As a doctor I’m very interested in taking care of my own patients, but I also am interested in nurturing the next generation of doctors and nurses.

>>Rick Crosslin: That pursuit has led Dr. Chuck around the world, teaching and healing with his organization, the Timmy Foundation.

>>Dr. Chuck: Well, the Timmy Foundation, which I started back in 1997, tries to identify students who are interested in the healthcare profession. I think if you want to become a doctor or nurse, therapist, dentist, it’s a long road, it’s a lot of schooling and this gives them an opportunity to discern if this is really what they’re called to do. So we work with high school and college students in this country and abroad to serve the underserved, and that gives them an opportunity

to actually put their hands in there and actually perform the procedures, do the thinking and the problem solving that’s necessary to help out another person.

>>Rick Crosslin: The Timmy Foundation has helped a lot of students get their first taste of what it’s like to be a doctor, and have helped a lot of people in doing so.

>>Dr. Chuck: The idea is to get our students to start making a difference and in the process they get inspired to learn more. As I’ve told many of these student’s who’ve worked with me in the past, we weren’t all born to be doctors and nurses, but we were all born to be healers.

>>Rick Crosslin: Before Jimmy met Dr. Chuck, he was told he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He can now walk. Today his story becomes inspiration for Dr. Chuck’s medical explorers. This class is also preparing to get some hands on experience with a state of the art surgical robot called Da Vinci. Now this machine may look like it’s right out of science fiction, but this isn’t science fiction, this is real science. This robot assists surgeons with performing a variety of different types of procedures. Our friend John Gullins was kind enough to come along and help us get a hands on experience with this machine. I can’t wait to give this a shot. This takes the game operation into the space age. First I’ve got to sit at the control console. This is where the surgeon sits to operate the robotic arms that could be miles away. This is definitely hands on science. John showed me several different maneuvers with this machine. Now this is the type of machine I can definitely get into.

>>Rick Crosslin: What an amazing piece of equipment, with the ability to perform surgery through keyhole incisions only 5 – 12 millimeters wide. That’s less than a centimeter. Performing surgery through such small entries helps minimize infection. With 580 degrees of rotation to match the movement of the surgeon’s wrist, precise gesture replication, a 10 times magnifying stereoscopic view, and a 3 to 1 down scale of your movement to help with your movement, it makes using this machine very intuitive. And did I mention a third arm? That’s right. If you were to ask a surgeon if there’s one thing they could have to help them in their career what would it be? A third arm. The Da Vinci robot delivers it. The surgeon can simply pop the clutch, switch to the third arm, enabling them to do multiple maneuvers that couldn’t be done with two hands.

>>Rick Crosslin: Wow. What a machine. Now I’m a little bit too old to start a career with robots and medical machines, but this next group of Da Vinci

operators, are at the right age and the right time to become experts for future medical miracle machines.

>>Male Student: It’s really cool. The sensitivity’s pretty amazing. And like my favorite part was the stereoscopic 3D view.

>>Rick Crosslin: Originally this type of technology came from a joint venture between NASA and the military to do tele-surgery. As a kid, I never would have dreamed of such a machine. Today, it’s a reality. You don’t have to wait until the next century to have a robotic surgery. It’s happening right here in Indiana.

>>Rick Crosslin: Next we head to Easter Seals Crossroads Rehabilitation Center. Dr. Chuck and many others help people with disabilities lead independent lives through the use of technology.

>>Rick Crosslin: Our tour guide is Wade Wingler. We’re a deaf community services, which is a place that helps folks who are deaf do lots of stuff. But if you, you know when you and I talked about meeting today we made a phone call and we talked about that. Well folks who are deaf aren’t going to use a telephone the same way you and I might.

>>Rick Crosslin: Using the Internet, a web cam, and American Sign Language, people who are deaf can call anywhere, allowing them to easily make doctors’ appointments, call friends, or order a pizza.

>>Rick Crosslin: Thank you,

>>Jar: thank you.

>>Rick Crosslin: Upstairs, Wade introduced me to a speech therapist. She specializes in something called augmentative communication.

>>Wendy: It’s basically any way of communicating outside of using your voice.

>>Rick Crosslin: Wendy showed me several machines that use sight and touch to help people who can’t use their voice express what they may want or need.

>>Rick Crosslin: So I understand this will work if you can touch, but what if you can’t touch? How can you use speech then?

>>Wendy: Well come on over here and let me show you. Have a seat in this chair. I’ll have to get you calibrated.

>>Rick Crosslin: Wendy set up a computer to read my eye movements, and before I knew it I was typing words and creating sentences without moving anything except my eyes. (Insert eye machine)

>>Rick Crosslin: Ok

>>Wendy: there’s, with a little bit of practice there’s something I’d like to say to you. It is:

>>Automated voice: Thank you.

>>Wendy: You’re welcome. Thanks for coming and visiting me.

>>Rick Crosslin: Thank you. This is awesome.

>>Rick Crosslin: Ok, what in the world is a room like this at a rehab center for?

>>Wade Wingler: Well, you know Rick, this is the multi sensory room, and people learn and do well in a lot of different kinds of environments, so this is a room where we can control the sounds, the colors, the different things that you can touch and feel in the environment to kind of create a way that works well for kids who might have autism or other kinds of issues going on.

>>Rick Crosslin: With this type of room, kids learn by actually seeing how what they do affects the space around them. They can touch and feel and manipulate objects to understand concepts that they would otherwise have trouble with. In the

tech lab devices like this video magnifier are used to help those who are visually impaired. Or how about this little device that reads whatever color you put it against.

>>Automated voice: Green. Black.

>>Rick Crosslin: There’s even a scanner that reads product information and nutrition facts on grocery items.

>>Automated voice: unintelligible, Muffin mix, blueberry.

>>Rick Crosslin: Easter Seals has a collection of over 13 hundred items that people can come in and test out and even borrow to see if it’s the right fit for them.

>>Automated voice: I-N-D-I-A-N-A

>>Rick Crosslin: Wade, I want to thank you for taking time out today to teach me a little bit more about people’s abilities and not their disabilities.

>>Wade Wingler: Rick, thanks for coming. We’re always glad to have folks here at Easter Seals Crossroads to teach more about how folks with disabilities can be more independent.

>>Rick Crosslin: Now before we go though I can’t help but notice that you have a medical miracle machine right here.

>>Wade Wingler: I do. You know, I’m a diabetic, insulin dependent, and I wear an insulin pump. So this device tells me what my blood sugar is, it gives me insulin or medication to keep me healthy.

>>Rick Crosslin: I know a little bit about type 1 diabetes, but let’s go learn a little bit more.

>>Woman: Did you know, the name diabetes is derived from a Greek word that means, “to siphon.”?

>>Rick Crosslin: The disease known as diabetes has been around for centuries, but there hasn’t been an effective treatment until the early 1920s.

>>Rick Crosslin: Thanks to the efforts of Colonel Eli Lilly, working with Canadian scientists, a solution was developed that allowed people with diabetes to live healthier, full lives. Healthy bodies make insulin in the pancreas, an organ located near the stomach. The insulin our own bodies produce helps us digest food. Diabetes occurs when the body stops making enough insulin. People who have diabetes have to put extra insulin into their bodies. One way to do this is by injecting it. The other is by using a device called an insulin pump. Here at the DYF camp in Noblesville, kids become experts with these devices.

>>Summer: I’ve had a pump since one year after I got diagnosed I started using pumps. You don’t have to keep pricking yourself over and over to get insulin. On the bottom of it there are batteries plugged into it and there’s no tubing on it.

>>Rick Crosslin: Wow and so that’s your new pump right there. And that’s your other

>>Summer: The tubing goes in when the needle goes in.

>>Rick Crosslin: Trained professionals help kids with these little medical miracles.

>>Angie: I am one of the insulin pump nurses. I make sure that all the kids that are wearing insulin pumps have a resource, a person that can help them with site changes, any kind of problems that may come up with their pump. The insulin pumps actually store a memory or historical data on how much insulin’s delivered, when it’s delivered, when they change their sets, the blood sugars that are entered into them and all that can be downloaded.

>>Rick Crosslin: Does it hurt to put that site in?

>>Angie: It shouldn’t be very painful.

>>Rick Crosslin: The pump administers the exact amount of insulin needed over time. This allows its user to go about a day without using a syringe to inject insulin. With the many advancements through research, technology, and education someone with diabetes can still have quite a day.

>>Group: My pump, my pump, my pump, my lovely little pump. Check it out!

>>Ben: Diabetes is kind of like a condition where your pancreas doesn’t work and it doesn’t produce insulin. And so we have insulin shots or we have insulin pumps. Here’s my weapon for paintball and here’s my weapon for diabetes. You know it doesn’t restrict you from doing anything you know fun.

>>Man: Ready to repel. The pump really is a medical miracle machine.

>>Rick Crosslin: It makes managing diabetes easy!

>>Cory: Even if you do have diabetes it doesn’t matter who you are or what type you have, just live your life as best you possibly can.

>>Ellen: It’s way easier to handle now.

>>Kelly: There are plenty of people who don’t have diabetes that can’t do this.

>>Emma: It definitely speeds me up. It gives me more like motivation to do things in my life, to accomplish more things.

>>Rick Crosslin: Kids are proof that there’s no limits to what someone can do with enough determination.

>>Rick Crosslin: John Schick is a guy who definitely didn’t let diabetes slow him down.

>>John Chick: I often wonder if I would be where I’m at today. Without that, it made me work that much harder in all these areas of my life as far as my diet and exercise and self-control and wanting to succeed.

>>Rick Crosslin : John is a defensive end for a little football team you might have heard of: the Indianapolis Colts.

>>John Chick: Been doing all the things that maybe as a little kid when, especially when I was first diagnosed with diabetes thought I might not be able to do I decided I was going to prove everybody wrong and I wanted to have success. So when I go talk to kids and tell them how I got to where I am, the biggest factor in it is just believe in yourself. You can overcome just about anything.

>>Rick Crosslin: Way back in 1921 Fredrick Banting and Charles Best, scientists at the University of Toronto, Canada discovered that by injecting insulin from a cow pancreas, that’s right, I said a cow pancreas, into a person with diabetes that person would become healthy as long as they continued to get insulin shots for the rest of their life. The first people treated with insulin injections were children in the Toronto General Hospital. Miraculously these kids recovered, some even from a diabetic coma, and went on to lead healthy lives. Eli Lilly and Company reached an agreement with the University of Toronto to make insulin at Indianapolis. Scientists at Lilly improved the insulin, making it more pure so that it was more effective.

>>Lisa: As far as we know this was the first time that a pharmaceutical company or a private business had really formed a partnership with a university. Lilly did produce the first commercial insulin and it was released on October 15 in 1923. And that was a huge accomplishment because insulin really was the world’s first life saving drug.

>>Rick Crosslin: By the end of 1923, insulin was being made in large quantities and was being sent to doctors and hospitals everywhere to treat people with diabetes. Throughout the next 60 years Eli Lilly and Company enhanced the purity and the effectiveness of insulin and improved the way insulin was made on the

production line. Until the 1980s insulin used to treat humans came from the pancreas glands of cows and pigs. Insulin from these animals is very close to the kinds our own bodies produce. In 1982 Eli Lilly and Company announced to the world that they were making human insulin. Lilly had made an agreement with scientists in California who had discovered how to make artificial human insulin by a chemical process called recombinant DNA technology. Insulin produced like this is called biosynthetic insulin and can be made in an endless supply. The human insulin made by Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis is the first human healthcare item made using recombinant DNA technology. Over 23 million people in America have diabetes. Thanks to insulin, made by companies like Eli Lilly, their disease is under control and they can lead healthier, more productive lives.

>>Caroline: Did you know, scientists have created a tattoo using nano technology to show glucose levels in blood? One day people with diabetes won’t need to prick their fingers to check their blood.

>>Rick Crosslin: Diabetes research and technological advances continue in Indiana. I’m here at ground zero of a battle that’s going on all around the world against a disease called diabetes.

>>Rick Crosslin: Here at the Herman B. Wells Diabetes Research Center skilled doctors from around the world study this disease.

>>Dr. MiraMira: Obviously we have a long way to go. It’s actually a disease that we get primarily because of our genes and also because of how we lead our lifestyle. Each form of diabetes has a different problem. So in the case of type 1 diabetes the cells that produce insulin don’t even exist, whereas in the case of type 2 diabetes those cells exist but they don’t produce a lot of insulin.

>>Rick Crosslin: In the lab doctors and scientists are experimenting with ideas to find a cure. A lot of discoveries are being by studying mice with diabetes.

>>Dr. MM: What we have here are experimental mice that we’ve engineered to develop diabetes.

>>Rick Crosslin: Research from the lab can be applied to help patients with many different diseases. But ask any of these doctors, the lab is great for testing, but it’s at the bedside where the real medical miracles happen.

>>Carmella: There’s no better place to learn then from your patients. And you can learn those things in clinic and you can think about them and use them for ideas about how you might do research to help their diseases.

>>Rick Crosslin:For one scientist, this work is personal.

>>Rick Crosslin: Patrick, how you doing?

>>Patrick: Hi Rick, good to see you. I was diagnosed over 25 years ago with type 1 diabetes right here at Riley Hospital. In my daily life I’m a scientist looking for a cure for type 1 diabetes. Every day we learn a little more and hopefully someday I can put myself out of business.

>>Rick Crosslin: Until we find a cure, the key to managing diabetes is keeping an eye on the body’s blood sugar levels.

>>Patrick: And I’ll do it on 3, 1, 2

>>Rick Crosslin:The best way to do this is to get a sample of the blood and check it. The technology used to do this is made right here in Indiana at a place called Roche Diagnostics.

>>Rick Crosslin: We’ve been learning a lot about the science that is going on to help cure diabetes. Today we’re going to learn about technology that is used to manage diabetes.

>>Rick Crosslin:I met up with my friend Brian to learn about the testing device. It all starts with the test strip.

>>Brian: Purely believe in putting the best quality into our products. Every single strip counts is our theme.

>>Rick Crosslin:The strip is made up of 3 parts. The circuitry talks to the meter, the chemistry that reacts to the blood, and the hydrophilic that acts like a wick that draws the blood up into the strip. A new strip is inserted into the meter each time someone needs to check. The results are almost instantaneous.

>>Rick Crosslin: What used to take days is now done in seconds.

>>Rick Crosslin: Next we go to Hawthorn Lake to see a truly uplifting medical miracle.

>>Rick Crosslin: Joe Ray is a world champion water skier who uses some pretty awesome

equipment to ride the wave.

>>Rick Crosslin: Joe, you’ve got quite an outfit here.

>>Rick Crosslin:There are different types of skies for different competitions. The small board is for trick skiing, the long one for jumping. Joe sits in what’s called the cage. It’s made to absorb some of the shock his body takes on jumps.

>>Joe Ray: The cage is it was designed by actually a fellow named Royce Andes. He was a former water skier that got disabled.

>>Rick Crosslin:With this innovation and a lot of Joe’s skill, he’s still able to put on quite a show.

>>Rick Crosslin: I’m going to ask you one more favor. You use a lot of technology today; how about putting this camera on your helmet when you do some of your jumps.

>>Joe Ray: Sure that’d work. I think it’d give a different perspective to people.

>>Rick Crosslin: Well this is just another example of how science and technology has helped people with their abilities do some really cool things. I’m Rick Crosslin. See you on the next Indiana Expeditions.

>>Rick Crosslin: For more information, extra content, and lesson plans go to IndianaExpeditions.org. Indiana Expeditions with Rick Crosslin is made possible through the generous support of the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, dedicated to improving the lives of patients and the communities we serve; the Dr. Laura Hare Charitable Trust, enhancing Indiana’s natural environment through preservation and protection of ecologically significant natural areas and promoting environmental education, stewardship, and awareness; and the Indiana Academy of Science, serving Indiana science since 1885.