About My Guests:

Dr. Will Flanary is an ophthalmologist and part-time comedian who has parlayed his personal health scares into medical-themed comedy shorts across his multiple social media platforms and has gathered a robust and engaged following of 4M+. During his 3rd year of med school, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and he began using humor as a coping mechanism. Following a second bout with cancer three years into his medical career, he created a Twitter account under the pseudonym “Dr. Glaucomflecken”—because it is arguably the funniest word in ophthalmology. A cardiac event and near-death experience in 2020 only fueled his creativity. Will’s comedy has evolved over time to incorporate biting satire of the US healthcare system, academic publishing, and interpersonal conflicts pervasive in the medical system. During the pandemic, his jokes and videos became a welcome reprieve from the horrors of working in healthcare for him, and for the millions of followers living through it. During that he expanded his comedy repertoire to include short skits incorporating a wide range of characters who worked at a fictional hospital called “Glaucomflecken General.” As Dr. Glaucomflecken, Dr. Flanary has collaborated with the US Surgeon General, given the 2022 Yale Medical School commencement address, and is a frequent keynote speaker worldwide where he encourages medical audiences to embrace humor in everyday life.

Kristin Flanary, MA was formally trained in cognitive neuroscience and social psychology and now works in marketing and communications. She and her ophthalmologist husband, Dr. Will Flanary, met in college at Texas Tech University before both earning advanced degrees at Dartmouth College. Kristin is best known internationally as her social media alter ego,”‘Lady Glaucomflecken,” where she shares wisdom and misadventures with her 65,000+ followers. Her stories come from her unique perspective of the healthcare system. She has been a patient, “married to medicine” through the entire medical training journey and beyond, a lay responder and CPR provider to her husband, and a caregiver and “co-survivor” of his two cancer occurrences and a sudden cardiac arrest.