Yvette Walker
With KVCR News.,I'm Yvette Walker. This is IE Latino Voices, where we invite representatives from Latino led and Latino serving organizations to share their stories and their impact in our region. Joining me today is Dr Rohinder Sandhu, Critical Care Pulmonary Physician at California Pulmonary Associates. Thank you so much for being with us today, Dr.Sandhu.
Dr. Rohinder Sandhu
Thank you for inviting me.
Yvette Walker
So Dr. Sandhu, tell us exactly what a critical care pulmonologist is and what they do.
Dr. Rohinder Sandhu
A critical care physician is a physician who will deal with a very ill patient who has multiple organs involved, whether it's respiratory, cardiac, neurological, endocrine or hemodynamic, that's low blood pressure, so all the systems in the body are not doing well. We have to kind of think about putting everything together to see how we can make the person better.
Yvette Walker
Have you seen concerning trends within the Latino community when it comes to pulmonary health?
Dr. Rohinder Sandhu
Not just Latino I think almost everybody, I think definitely we do have big concern of cigarette smoke and leading on to respiratory problems, whether it's asthma exacerbation or developing emphysema or worsening COPD. Along with that, I think the major thing that we're dealing with is patients who are not taking care of their own health. By putting on weight, they're not exercising. All my patients who see me, they will always hear from me, "please exercise". One of the other things that we saw at COVID time was people who continue to be active and exercise, they definitely did better in fighting that virus and taking care of the self and surviving.
Yvette Walker
So Dr. Sandhu, can you share information about new technology, treatment options within pulmonary medicine.
Dr. Rohinder Sandhu
There are a lot of new different things that are coming along. Recently, we have had robotic bronchoscopy. We do that all the time - conventional bronchoscopy. When the person is sick, I can't figure out what kind of pneumonia they have. I will put in a scope through their mouth or through their nose into their lungs and take a specimen, but sometimes those bronchoscopy could only go to one or two generations of breathing tubes. But the pathology that we have is far away. It's further away in the lungs area. So robotic bronchoscopy is somewhat advanced, minimally invasive that robots could help us in getting to a nodule that's very, very small. We could get to these one centimeter nodule much more easily, and the patient does not have to wait. In the past, we used to say, do you know the nodule is too small? Let's do another CT scan in three months or six months to see if it gets bigger in size. The concern as a physician, concern as a patient, always is, what if I have cancer? You are telling me to wait for three months? That's not something that gives them peace of mind, and that, as a physician, does not give me peace of mind. And along with that, we could diagnose somebody who may have, God forbid, cancer much earlier. That's really important. Number two is we could also find infection, if we're dealing with some infection, but it's very small. It's not getting better. We could get with this robotic bronchoscopy early. We also have EBAs- endobronchial ultrasound with the bronchus with the ultrasound machine up on the top that we could put in there and take a picture of the lymph nodes to see if there is any enlargement of the lymph nodes. And I can do biopsy to make sure the cancer has not gone in the lymph nodes. But it's much less invasive than somebody opening up my patient's chest and then realizing, no the cancer has spread. But I opened up the chest area. It didn't need to be done. That would be important.
Yvette Walker
It's exciting to hear about this advanced technology, particularly in robotics, designed to create a less invasive approach to giving your patients peace of mind. Dr Sandhu, talk about how the community can connect with you, ask you questions, and learn more about this innovative technology.
Dr. Rohinder Sandhu
We have two offices, one in Upland, one in Glendora. The phone number is 626-914-5219. Anybody calling me day or night, I don't mind. One thing I love more than anything else in the world after my husband and my kids, is medicine. So I do not mind anybody calling me.
Yvette Walker
Thank you so much, Dr Sandhu. Join us again next week for IE Latino Voices. You can find this story and others on our website at KVCRnews.org/IELatinoVoices. IE Latino Voices is produced by KVCR Public Media, and is funded by generous support from San Antonio Regional Hospital. Here for life. For KVCR News, I'm Yvette Walker.
