Dr Paul Ch'en: Right, all. So this is the first episode of our new podcast PerFlow So welcome listeners. My name is Dr. Paul Ch'en My co-host is Dr. Wafaa Abdel-Hadi amazing doctor. And then we're to talk a lot about essentially self-care. How do you make yourself the better version of yourself? But also wrapped around things like healthcare, ⁓ things in of... ⁓ ability to make those smart choices to live better and in good health. And I think it's going to be an exciting podcast series with many seasons and hopefully you will all join in on this fantastic journey with myself and Wafaa But before that, I'd like to introduce ourselves. ahead.
Dr Wafaa: Thank you all. excited to be part of our Per Flow podcast. And the most exciting thing about this, it is a medical education podcast that is created and edited by medical doctors. And that's what makes it unique. Talking about myself in brief, am a clinical oncologist from Kassel-Aini School of Medicine in Cairo University. And by clinical oncologists, it involves all conventional treatment from chemotherapy to hormonal treatment, immunotherapy, and even radiotherapy. I also did that. I finished my master's degrees, and right when I was about to apply for my PhD, I got introduced to the realm of functional medicine, where I joined the Institute for Functional Medicine in the States, finished and got certified in less than two years. and I became the first certified functional medicine doctor in the Middle East. Functional medicine made me understand why I was so frustrated about my patients response to treatment. Diving deep into root-cause medicine made all the sense I needed to practice with a clear consciousness and intention. It also made ⁓ sense to my creation of Aware Clinic back in 2014. I wanted patients to be aware about what's going on inside their body to take charge of their health through their analyzing. the patterns of their imbalances, trusting in the miracle of the human body to heal when given the right tools to survive. And thrive, of course. So I've done a lot of things, but it will take days to talk about it. ⁓ let's just go through knowing who is the amazing Dr. Paul on the other side.
Dr Paul Ch'en: I'm not sure about the word amazing, but thank you for that. An amazing you are indeed. So my background. So I've come into, well, I've came into medicine quite late. So I used to be a biochemist. in cancer immunology. So I'm always a bit envious of Wafaa being in the clinical sector, but I've always had a soft spot, if that's the right word, to trying to help patients, particularly on their cancer journey. ⁓ as part of having done a PhD and then a postdoc afterwards, I then went to medicine in the hope of either becoming a clinical oncologist or a medical oncologist, a like Wafaa ⁓ I sort of pivoted during my junior doctor training ⁓ I felt that rather than helping patients on the latter end of the journey, and kudos to all those oncologists who do do that, I thought I could perhaps focus my attention and delve a needle to the far left about prevention lifestyle medicine with an Ocero cancer hat on. And so I then became a general practitioner, hoping initially to perhaps work in the interface between primary care and secondary care. So that's general practice in hospital medicine for those who may not know. And with that, one of the goals is to be able to set up a cancer wellbeing centre down the line. But of course, Swafi and I have formed a partnership. We've got our fantastic editor, Elliott who would introduce as well. But with this, think what I've come to understand is that cancer is very unique in so much as it's one of the chronic diseases of ageing. As a GP, I'm faced with a lot of reactive healthcare. And I've always been quite frustrated with the fact that we're sort of coming at it at the wrong end of the spectrum. We should be actually focusing on lifestyle medicine prevention, but also the idea about patient empowerment and also responsibility of the individual. And I think this podcast serves that purpose, or will hopefully will serve that purpose in empowering you as the listener. to then take those good steps and smarter choices to live better in better health, essentially. We're going to take a deeper dive of the structure of the podcast, but before they say, can I introduce Dr. Elliott Ayling who's our editor. Fire ahead.
Elliott Ayling: I mean, like both of you, I'm so excited to kind of be part of what is such an amazing project to help empower everyone, not just patients, everyone to kind of help live them a healthier, happier, longer life. It does my background very briefly. I'm a GP trainee, so general practice trainee. I graduated from the University of Southampton back in 2022. And the reason I'm a part of this, the reason I want to be a general practitioner. is because of my interest in helping prevent and manage the onset of non-communicable diseases. But I won't bore you too much with myself, it's all about Paul and Wafaa here. So I'll let you guys talk bit more about what it is we're doing how we're planning to help our listeners.
Dr Paul Ch'en: Thanks, Elliot. Yeah, I think we've got a fantastic team here. And the podcast basically seeks to challenge conventional health narratives as prevention is the key. I think what will perhaps differentiate us in a way as a podcast is the idea that, I mean, we all know that self care is important. There issues like self help, self reliance, self acceptance, self awareness, self actualization. We'll cover these in different episodes as well. But think one really big take home message for today's purpose is that we've become in a nation where we are so focused on genetics and genetics has been perhaps thought to be incorrectly as the sole determinant of health outcomes. And I'd to make a point or we'd like to make a point that perhaps there's a lot of emerging science that's saying that the genes are not the blueprint of life and we'll take a deeper dive at later episodes about this. But I think what's important is if that is case, I think the important thing is that we can take individually control of our own destiny. And that then feeds into the various things of what we will then call, there's nice catchphrase that we're using to say, To be the responsible individual, take your MEDSSS ⁓ learn to be the happiest you. And the take your meds is a bit of a pun, because it's not about medication, but it's about mindset, exercise, diet. There's three S's, so obviously reducing stress, making sure you optimize your sleep, social connection. And I think if we can wrap everything around those lifestyle domains or lifestyle skills, whatever we want to call it down the line, I think we're one step closer to, again, making those good choices that will enable you to function better. But also in the context of healthcare, I think if the listeners can take those good, make those good steps. and we also have to anchor onto habit, and we'll take another deeper dive on that later as well. Then we can then hopefully make you function at a higher level, and then we can then take that journey together to become your version two. Wafaa what are your thoughts?
Dr Wafaa: Well, I agree with you, Paul. We've been chatting over the past two years, I think. And that's why we created this podcast, because we wanted our voice to reach as many people as we can possibly, including our friends, our family and the rest of the world. ⁓ We've been talking, you've been, I want to thank you. Like you are my 2025 gift from the universe, Paul, like having your friendship being here for me. And the bond that we created together, our intentions to treat our patients as a whole, not as which diseases they have. You inspire me to go forward. remember when we talked about creating a newsletter or emails, et cetera, but the most joyful thing in life is the power of your voice, where it vibrates and sends good energy when you speak. ⁓ Especially when you are passionate about what you're talking about, like me as an integrative oncologist or you as like, I wish all GPs would be like you and Elliot because what you and Elliot are doing are you are providing awareness. If someone is aware about what's going on in their body, there will be an active participant in their health journey. Not just you go to a GP and he tell you you have a headache and then he give you a prescription and then you go and... and get the prescription. I'm very happy that we're using our voice, sending our passion, vibrating its positive, blissful megahertz to the whole world. but I wanted our ⁓ blessed listeners to know why we choose the word Perflow as a name for our podcast.
Dr Paul Ch'en: ⁓ that's an excellent question. So I think where it came from is, we often talk about when you talk about holistic care, we want to treat and manage body, mind and soul. And of course, ⁓ as a GP, I'm mostly in the longevity space as well, we often cater to the body, some of us will cater to the mind as ⁓ perhaps not on the soul to the of it's really our field per se, but I think also what's important to note is that there are aspects of personal growth and development that are equally important, least I believe, ⁓ in ⁓ to you to make better choices, but also upgrading yourself. And we're at personal growth and development. ⁓ I thought it was quite useful to also of stick in the word soul in it without any spiritual connotations to it. And I was thinking, could there be a word that could be substituted for that? the closest I could find was the flow. And so the PerFlow actually stands for personal growth and development and flow. And the idea is that that may then hopefully lead into you as the listener to making those better choices and smarter choices. I think what's also important through these podcasts is it sort of builds into the idea of an importance of habit formation. And Often when I see patients, I often talk about the fact that habit formation is about optimizing your good habits, acquiring new and better habits. And the hardest of all, and I think this is myself, Wafaa and Elliott as well, is to reduce those bad habits. And I think with that, we then need to incentivize those new actions and putting those sorts of actions, usually the hard bit, and then normalizing it. And then perhaps even gamifying it. So it might be that sometimes. In Oxford we have our university parks, might be that you go to the university parks if you want 10,000 steps, whatever it is, I think the science is between 6,000 to 10,000 now. Oh it might be that you want to make sure the optmise is asleep, that's something that I need to teach myself to to optimize as well. I think it's those ideas of how do you make these small changes that make a subsequent difference and it's sort all boils down to habit formation. But I think it is a difficult one. And hopefully, as you listen to this podcast, you'll find that this will work out. So in terms of the structure, obviously I'll pass it on to Wafaa as well, but broadly speaking, what we'll do is that perhaps as a GP, I'll essentially be the patient advocate, of course, with the expert knowledge as a general practitioner as well, to try to ask the salient questions to Wafaa and Wafaa vice versa as well. in relation to various life domains and also in terms of healthcare stuff general practice, integral oncology, self-care, self-help, these sorts of things. Hopefully Wafaa will comment from her angle. We have some take-home messages. I think we are also accountable, just as you are the listeners, to make sure that we take action. So we will try to do after each episode something. until our next episode. And then perhaps for you, the listeners, to have a bit of a think about what you might be able to do having listened to that episode. And that's the general structure. But again, think it's going to be the take-home message here is that it's meant to energise you guys and hopefully for you to just make that one step easier, make it easier for you to make those steps at the end of the day.
Dr Wafaa: Excellent. I'm just, yeah, I'm very excited that we're starting this podcast because, know, when you have patients coming to your clinic and then you want to tell them, to tell them your life, you know, all your experience in a go. And then they get like so dizzy with the sum of information that you are trying to give them. Like I used to like, I used to draw the liver and show my patients the liver detoxification pathways and why they should stay away from inflammatory foods and stuff like that. And I hope that each episode will target something in 15, 20 minutes max. We'll try to make it as short as possible so people won't be bored from the length of the podcast. And then we decide one action step that we're going to do and then we check it. like if we actually did it because you have to put your oxygen mask first before helping others. And then we'll just take it from there. And I'm so excited that I have you, I have Elliot. So I might be actually... I am inspired by both of you, so excited to be starting episode one after this intro. So what are your plans for your very first lifestyle modification Paul?
Dr Paul Ch'en: ⁓ you beat me to it. I was gonna ask you first. So my plan would be, mean, I'm, I mean, it's a difficult one, partly because I often try to, I the philosophy, medical school, they usually say this phrase, see one, do one, teach one. And I think it's important, particularly when it's lifestyle choices, that if we're going to make those advice to our patients, that we too should be actually be able to do what we're saying and advising. I think for me, ⁓ bit that I struggle somewhat is sleep. ⁓ Partly because I find that I do work till quite late in the evenings. And again, it's a vicious cycle because I know that I tend to do a lot, achieve a lot, and then there's a knock on effect the next day. But because it's a sort of delayed knock on effect, I think human nature is that we can't visualize what we haven't experienced yet, both positive or negative. So for me, if I can even perhaps sleep half an hour or even an hour earlier, think that will make a huge difference to my general wellbeing. So ⁓ my promise to the listeners is that until our next episode, I will try to optimize, let's say, sleep half an hour earlier than my usual time. Say what they have at you.
Dr Wafaa: Well, ⁓ first I want to congratulate you, Paul, for realizing your sleep patterns. And we're going to talk about sleep in one of our episodes, of course. For me, I just want to start walking every day. Like, I don't want to do like marathons or running or go to the gym or do impossible, you know, like... ⁓ Goals, what I want to do is that I want to wake up in the morning, drop the kids to school, and then I go walking for maybe 45 minutes listening to our podcasts or any other podcasts that I would love to listen to and just make it a habit to breathe, walk in nature. I am able to do that every day nonstop, let it like sunshine or rain, I would be very happy about myself. what about Elliot? We have to know.
Elliott Ayling: I think for me, as Paul was saying earlier, social connection is such an important thing, so I'm going to make a conscious effort to get out and see people more, spend more time with loved ones. So actually after this recording, I'm planning to go out for coffee with my mum. So I'm to go and do that and I'm going to be present and I'm going to create more plans for us and myself and my friends in the future.
Dr Wafaa: This is beautiful. This actually nourishes the soul, You know the social connection that we have barely lost at the era of COVID. So we need to actually reconnect with everyone.
Dr Paul Ch'en: Absolutely. So on that note, think listeners, your turn. So if you can think of one thing that you might be able to do before our next episode one, I think that's a good start. But I think for today, we will call it a day. And we will look forward to see you in the next episode. Bye for now.
Dr Wafaa: revoir, ⁓ à prochaine.
Dr Wafaa: Thank you all. excited to be part of our Per Flow podcast. And the most exciting thing about this, it is a medical education podcast that is created and edited by medical doctors. And that's what makes it unique. Talking about myself in brief, am a clinical oncologist from Kassel-Aini School of Medicine in Cairo University. And by clinical oncologists, it involves all conventional treatment from chemotherapy to hormonal treatment, immunotherapy, and even radiotherapy. I also did that. I finished my master's degrees, and right when I was about to apply for my PhD, I got introduced to the realm of functional medicine, where I joined the Institute for Functional Medicine in the States, finished and got certified in less than two years. and I became the first certified functional medicine doctor in the Middle East. Functional medicine made me understand why I was so frustrated about my patients response to treatment. Diving deep into root-cause medicine made all the sense I needed to practice with a clear consciousness and intention. It also made ⁓ sense to my creation of Aware Clinic back in 2014. I wanted patients to be aware about what's going on inside their body to take charge of their health through their analyzing. the patterns of their imbalances, trusting in the miracle of the human body to heal when given the right tools to survive. And thrive, of course. So I've done a lot of things, but it will take days to talk about it. ⁓ let's just go through knowing who is the amazing Dr. Paul on the other side.
Dr Paul Ch'en: I'm not sure about the word amazing, but thank you for that. An amazing you are indeed. So my background. So I've come into, well, I've came into medicine quite late. So I used to be a biochemist. in cancer immunology. So I'm always a bit envious of Wafaa being in the clinical sector, but I've always had a soft spot, if that's the right word, to trying to help patients, particularly on their cancer journey. ⁓ as part of having done a PhD and then a postdoc afterwards, I then went to medicine in the hope of either becoming a clinical oncologist or a medical oncologist, a like Wafaa ⁓ I sort of pivoted during my junior doctor training ⁓ I felt that rather than helping patients on the latter end of the journey, and kudos to all those oncologists who do do that, I thought I could perhaps focus my attention and delve a needle to the far left about prevention lifestyle medicine with an Ocero cancer hat on. And so I then became a general practitioner, hoping initially to perhaps work in the interface between primary care and secondary care. So that's general practice in hospital medicine for those who may not know. And with that, one of the goals is to be able to set up a cancer wellbeing centre down the line. But of course, Swafi and I have formed a partnership. We've got our fantastic editor, Elliott who would introduce as well. But with this, think what I've come to understand is that cancer is very unique in so much as it's one of the chronic diseases of ageing. As a GP, I'm faced with a lot of reactive healthcare. And I've always been quite frustrated with the fact that we're sort of coming at it at the wrong end of the spectrum. We should be actually focusing on lifestyle medicine prevention, but also the idea about patient empowerment and also responsibility of the individual. And I think this podcast serves that purpose, or will hopefully will serve that purpose in empowering you as the listener. to then take those good steps and smarter choices to live better in better health, essentially. We're going to take a deeper dive of the structure of the podcast, but before they say, can I introduce Dr. Elliott Ayling who's our editor. Fire ahead.
Elliott Ayling: I mean, like both of you, I'm so excited to kind of be part of what is such an amazing project to help empower everyone, not just patients, everyone to kind of help live them a healthier, happier, longer life. It does my background very briefly. I'm a GP trainee, so general practice trainee. I graduated from the University of Southampton back in 2022. And the reason I'm a part of this, the reason I want to be a general practitioner. is because of my interest in helping prevent and manage the onset of non-communicable diseases. But I won't bore you too much with myself, it's all about Paul and Wafaa here. So I'll let you guys talk bit more about what it is we're doing how we're planning to help our listeners.
Dr Paul Ch'en: Thanks, Elliot. Yeah, I think we've got a fantastic team here. And the podcast basically seeks to challenge conventional health narratives as prevention is the key. I think what will perhaps differentiate us in a way as a podcast is the idea that, I mean, we all know that self care is important. There issues like self help, self reliance, self acceptance, self awareness, self actualization. We'll cover these in different episodes as well. But think one really big take home message for today's purpose is that we've become in a nation where we are so focused on genetics and genetics has been perhaps thought to be incorrectly as the sole determinant of health outcomes. And I'd to make a point or we'd like to make a point that perhaps there's a lot of emerging science that's saying that the genes are not the blueprint of life and we'll take a deeper dive at later episodes about this. But I think what's important is if that is case, I think the important thing is that we can take individually control of our own destiny. And that then feeds into the various things of what we will then call, there's nice catchphrase that we're using to say, To be the responsible individual, take your MEDSSS ⁓ learn to be the happiest you. And the take your meds is a bit of a pun, because it's not about medication, but it's about mindset, exercise, diet. There's three S's, so obviously reducing stress, making sure you optimize your sleep, social connection. And I think if we can wrap everything around those lifestyle domains or lifestyle skills, whatever we want to call it down the line, I think we're one step closer to, again, making those good choices that will enable you to function better. But also in the context of healthcare, I think if the listeners can take those good, make those good steps. and we also have to anchor onto habit, and we'll take another deeper dive on that later as well. Then we can then hopefully make you function at a higher level, and then we can then take that journey together to become your version two. Wafaa what are your thoughts?
Dr Wafaa: Well, I agree with you, Paul. We've been chatting over the past two years, I think. And that's why we created this podcast, because we wanted our voice to reach as many people as we can possibly, including our friends, our family and the rest of the world. ⁓ We've been talking, you've been, I want to thank you. Like you are my 2025 gift from the universe, Paul, like having your friendship being here for me. And the bond that we created together, our intentions to treat our patients as a whole, not as which diseases they have. You inspire me to go forward. remember when we talked about creating a newsletter or emails, et cetera, but the most joyful thing in life is the power of your voice, where it vibrates and sends good energy when you speak. ⁓ Especially when you are passionate about what you're talking about, like me as an integrative oncologist or you as like, I wish all GPs would be like you and Elliot because what you and Elliot are doing are you are providing awareness. If someone is aware about what's going on in their body, there will be an active participant in their health journey. Not just you go to a GP and he tell you you have a headache and then he give you a prescription and then you go and... and get the prescription. I'm very happy that we're using our voice, sending our passion, vibrating its positive, blissful megahertz to the whole world. but I wanted our ⁓ blessed listeners to know why we choose the word Perflow as a name for our podcast.
Dr Paul Ch'en: ⁓ that's an excellent question. So I think where it came from is, we often talk about when you talk about holistic care, we want to treat and manage body, mind and soul. And of course, ⁓ as a GP, I'm mostly in the longevity space as well, we often cater to the body, some of us will cater to the mind as ⁓ perhaps not on the soul to the of it's really our field per se, but I think also what's important to note is that there are aspects of personal growth and development that are equally important, least I believe, ⁓ in ⁓ to you to make better choices, but also upgrading yourself. And we're at personal growth and development. ⁓ I thought it was quite useful to also of stick in the word soul in it without any spiritual connotations to it. And I was thinking, could there be a word that could be substituted for that? the closest I could find was the flow. And so the PerFlow actually stands for personal growth and development and flow. And the idea is that that may then hopefully lead into you as the listener to making those better choices and smarter choices. I think what's also important through these podcasts is it sort of builds into the idea of an importance of habit formation. And Often when I see patients, I often talk about the fact that habit formation is about optimizing your good habits, acquiring new and better habits. And the hardest of all, and I think this is myself, Wafaa and Elliott as well, is to reduce those bad habits. And I think with that, we then need to incentivize those new actions and putting those sorts of actions, usually the hard bit, and then normalizing it. And then perhaps even gamifying it. So it might be that sometimes. In Oxford we have our university parks, might be that you go to the university parks if you want 10,000 steps, whatever it is, I think the science is between 6,000 to 10,000 now. Oh it might be that you want to make sure the optmise is asleep, that's something that I need to teach myself to to optimize as well. I think it's those ideas of how do you make these small changes that make a subsequent difference and it's sort all boils down to habit formation. But I think it is a difficult one. And hopefully, as you listen to this podcast, you'll find that this will work out. So in terms of the structure, obviously I'll pass it on to Wafaa as well, but broadly speaking, what we'll do is that perhaps as a GP, I'll essentially be the patient advocate, of course, with the expert knowledge as a general practitioner as well, to try to ask the salient questions to Wafaa and Wafaa vice versa as well. in relation to various life domains and also in terms of healthcare stuff general practice, integral oncology, self-care, self-help, these sorts of things. Hopefully Wafaa will comment from her angle. We have some take-home messages. I think we are also accountable, just as you are the listeners, to make sure that we take action. So we will try to do after each episode something. until our next episode. And then perhaps for you, the listeners, to have a bit of a think about what you might be able to do having listened to that episode. And that's the general structure. But again, think it's going to be the take-home message here is that it's meant to energise you guys and hopefully for you to just make that one step easier, make it easier for you to make those steps at the end of the day.
Dr Wafaa: Excellent. I'm just, yeah, I'm very excited that we're starting this podcast because, know, when you have patients coming to your clinic and then you want to tell them, to tell them your life, you know, all your experience in a go. And then they get like so dizzy with the sum of information that you are trying to give them. Like I used to like, I used to draw the liver and show my patients the liver detoxification pathways and why they should stay away from inflammatory foods and stuff like that. And I hope that each episode will target something in 15, 20 minutes max. We'll try to make it as short as possible so people won't be bored from the length of the podcast. And then we decide one action step that we're going to do and then we check it. like if we actually did it because you have to put your oxygen mask first before helping others. And then we'll just take it from there. And I'm so excited that I have you, I have Elliot. So I might be actually... I am inspired by both of you, so excited to be starting episode one after this intro. So what are your plans for your very first lifestyle modification Paul?
Dr Paul Ch'en: ⁓ you beat me to it. I was gonna ask you first. So my plan would be, mean, I'm, I mean, it's a difficult one, partly because I often try to, I the philosophy, medical school, they usually say this phrase, see one, do one, teach one. And I think it's important, particularly when it's lifestyle choices, that if we're going to make those advice to our patients, that we too should be actually be able to do what we're saying and advising. I think for me, ⁓ bit that I struggle somewhat is sleep. ⁓ Partly because I find that I do work till quite late in the evenings. And again, it's a vicious cycle because I know that I tend to do a lot, achieve a lot, and then there's a knock on effect the next day. But because it's a sort of delayed knock on effect, I think human nature is that we can't visualize what we haven't experienced yet, both positive or negative. So for me, if I can even perhaps sleep half an hour or even an hour earlier, think that will make a huge difference to my general wellbeing. So ⁓ my promise to the listeners is that until our next episode, I will try to optimize, let's say, sleep half an hour earlier than my usual time. Say what they have at you.
Dr Wafaa: Well, ⁓ first I want to congratulate you, Paul, for realizing your sleep patterns. And we're going to talk about sleep in one of our episodes, of course. For me, I just want to start walking every day. Like, I don't want to do like marathons or running or go to the gym or do impossible, you know, like... ⁓ Goals, what I want to do is that I want to wake up in the morning, drop the kids to school, and then I go walking for maybe 45 minutes listening to our podcasts or any other podcasts that I would love to listen to and just make it a habit to breathe, walk in nature. I am able to do that every day nonstop, let it like sunshine or rain, I would be very happy about myself. what about Elliot? We have to know.
Elliott Ayling: I think for me, as Paul was saying earlier, social connection is such an important thing, so I'm going to make a conscious effort to get out and see people more, spend more time with loved ones. So actually after this recording, I'm planning to go out for coffee with my mum. So I'm to go and do that and I'm going to be present and I'm going to create more plans for us and myself and my friends in the future.
Dr Wafaa: This is beautiful. This actually nourishes the soul, You know the social connection that we have barely lost at the era of COVID. So we need to actually reconnect with everyone.
Dr Paul Ch'en: Absolutely. So on that note, think listeners, your turn. So if you can think of one thing that you might be able to do before our next episode one, I think that's a good start. But I think for today, we will call it a day. And we will look forward to see you in the next episode. Bye for now.
Dr Wafaa: revoir, ⁓ à prochaine.
