Greg:
Hey, this is Greg here from Big Bae mornings and 99.7 Now. And I’m back with board certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Bae. How you been, Dr. Bae?
Dr. Bae:
I’m good ,Greg. I’m thankfully healthy. No signs of COVID, doing well.
New vaccine mandate
Greg:
That is good. Well, that leads me into my next topic, because I know that coming into your office, if you want a consultation, or if you’re going to get surgery with you, you have a new vaccine mandate. Is that correct?
Dr. Bae:
That is correct. Throughout this entire pandemic, we’ve been requiring patients to at least test negative in the community. And then when they come in the morning of surgery, we do get an antibody test on them. But now with this delta variant being a thousand times more infectious than the original Wuhan variant, we just had to get serious about it and our employees have always been vaccinated. That wasn’t a mandate. They just wanted to go out and get vaccinated because they’re into science and things.
Greg:
Oh my God, imagine that, being into science.
Dr. Bae:
Right, right. And being in healthcare and being into science. Right. And so that we’ve decided that we’re going to require all patients coming in for consults, for injectables, for surgery, that they have to be vaccinated. It’s no longer good enough just to have a negative test. You’ve got to be vaccinated, to at least minimize the chance of you getting breakthrough COVID, excuse me, a breakthrough COVID infection.
Free coffee for everyone… who is vaccinated
Dr. Bae:
The way it all started though, is kind of funny. It started out funny at least, that we got this new latte machine that had latte art on it, which we actually posted a photo of you yesterday on our latte.
Greg:
I saw you-
Dr. Bae:
And everybody’s asking for a sip of it.
Greg:
You can make my face on… no, you’re actually making my face on your latte machine.
Dr. Bae:
Right. We can upload your photo. We upload our logos, things like that. And then the machine prints out your face on top of the latte.
Greg:
I can’t wait to send this to my mom. I mean, she’s going to be like, “You finally made it.”
Latte art promotion
Dr. Bae:
Ginger will love it. Ginger will love it. And so what we said is like, oh, we should have people come in and get free coffee and then we’ll put our logo on the latte art. And then if people tag us on social media, they’ll get 10% off the surgeon’s fees for injectables or for surgery. And then we were like, you know what? If we’re offering all these people to come in for free so that they’ll tag us on social media, then we need to make sure that they’re all vaccinated. We don’t want to be bringing a bunch of delta variants into the office. And then we started thinking, well, if we’re going to require everybody to be vaccinated to get coffee, well, maybe we should be requiring everybody to get vaccinated who’s going to be having surgery. Because if you have COVID and you get surgery, you’re going to have the increased risk of getting infections or having post-op complications associated with your surgery.
Dr. Bae:
So that’s how it all started. And then we’ve said, okay, that’s what we’re going to do. So it’s been a few weeks now that we have a vaccine mandate for all patients coming into the office. Even if you were a previous surgical patient and you’re coming back to get another operation, you’ve got to be vaccinated now.
Pushback to our vaccine mandate
Dr. Bae:
And we have had some pushback. But so far… I mean pushback on social media, people saying, “Oh, this is like Nazi Germany.” Everybody always loves to use Nazi Germany as their excuse for anything. And they always think that they automatically win an argument if they compare you to Nazis. They don’t realize that you automatically lose an argument when you compare something to Nazi Germany. But we’ve had some people say, “Oh yeah, you’re forcing us to do this.” It’s like, not forcing you to do anything. You can choose not to get vaccinated. And I can choose not to have you in the office at the increased risk of getting-
Greg:
It’s really about keeping everybody safe, though.
Dr. Bae:
Exactly.
Greg:
It’s not just about forcing people into vaccinations. It’s about keeping your staff safe, you safe, and the patients safe.
Dr. Bae:
And also not bringing home the delta variant to Emilio, our six and a half month old who’s not eligible for vaccine yet.
Greg:
You have a baby to think about now. It changes everything.
Dr. Bae:
I have to. Just like I care about other people’s babies staying healthy, then you should care about my baby staying healthy and that’s why you should come in vaccinated now.
Why you should get vaccinated
Dr. Bae:
The thing that I don’t understand is, I know everybody’s got their different viewpoints on the science and they feel like this is this or that, but just with the data coming out with all of these people who are being hospitalized, that overwhelmingly the people that are being hospitalized are unvaccinated people and to a much lesser degree, it’s vaccinated people. And then to a greater degree, the people that are vaccinated are staying out of the hospital. They’re not getting serious illness. They’re kind of having a cold. And so just the numbers seem so obvious to me that if you’re unvaccinated, you’re at much higher risk of being admitted to the hospital, dying and things like that.
Dr. Bae:
The thing that blows me away is, think about this. Think about if this delta variant, which is a thousand times more infectious than the original Wuhan variant, think about if we had this variant at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020-
Greg:
Oh my God.
Dr. Bae:
when there was no protection against it, there was no vaccine. It would be Armageddon. Everybody would be getting admitted to the hospital. It would’ve been really horrible.
Greg:
Well, we definitely would have been in our bunkers then. Yeah, we would have been hiding.
Dr. Bae:
For sure. If we think it’s bad now, it would have been way worse if we had no protection against something that was that infectious and that serious. So because of all that, that’s why we are requiring people to get vaccinated. And you know what? Get vaccinated, come in, get some free coffee, tag us on social media, get 10% off surgery. How can you go wrong with that?
How to learn more
Greg:
And you know what? You don’t even have to get any kind of procedure, or ever even think about getting any kind of procedure-
Dr. Bae:
That’s true.
Greg:
of course we would love for you to, to get that free coffee.
Dr. Bae:
Right. That is true.
Greg:
How do we get the free coffee, Dr. Bae? If we’re vaccinated, we can reach out to you.
Dr. Bae:
That is a really good point. You do not have to be a patient or get a procedure just to get the free coffee. You can just come in, be vaccinated and get it. So the way to do it is you actually go to our website, realdrBae.com, R-E-A-L-D-R-B-A-E.com, and you’ll see a link to put a pre-order in for your latte.
Greg:
Oh wow.
Dr. Bae:
And you just book your coffee right there and you come in and we will give you a coffee with our logo on it.
Greg:
No, my face.
Dr. Bae:
And you can choose to tag us on social media or not.
Greg:
My face. Ask for my face.
Dr. Bae:
You get a choice, either Greg’s face or our logo.
Greg:
Perfect.
Dr. Bae:
But we also can put your post-op photos on the latte art. We have a booty shot on the latte now.
Greg:
Wow.
Dr. Bae:
Yeah, yeah. Check out your e-blast. You’re in there. We sent out an email newsletter this morning. You’re in there.
Greg:
Oh, Lord. I hope it’s not my booty.
Dr. Bae:
But it’s pretty funny. It’s amazing. What you can do with latte art now is limitless.
Greg:
All right. Well, we’ll see you soon, Dr. Bae.
Dr. Bae:
Thanks so much, Greg.
