An Eccentric American Doctor in Belarus | He Thinks Differently #eccentricexpat #americaninbelarus

Okay, welcome back to Allotic Ventures. As some of you might know, I'm back in Minsk for a week, 10 days. I take care of some personal business in regards to my apartment. But I ran into my old friend, Dr. Andrew Hutchins. Now say you're a doctor. And is this with your ultra-sensitive microphone like last time? No, it's better. It's better. Oh, I just remember last time it was like it could pick up someone's conversation from across the room. We're on a terrace, all by ourselves. When I record my videos, I have to kind of shout at the camera because I'm just recording from my telephone. So anyways, back by popular demand, some of you guys might have seen the first interview that we did, probably about two and a half years ago, and we got a lot of hits on it. Dr. Michael and Dr. Andrew is a very interesting man. So we're here for part two. So why don't you give us a quick introduction on how you got to Minsk and then kind of give us an update. So I originally came here for a girl, and yeah, that's why I came here. And I decided that since I already wanted a medical degree, I always wanted a... It's not that I care about going to medical school, but I always wanted the freedom to write prescriptions. So I decided to go to medical university. where are you from originally i'm from california southern california yeah there's a difference i'm from northern california yeah near los angeles okay so what what year did you did you move you want we could just restart it so i don't talk about the camera and everything that's okay okay no we're good it's just free flowing yeah um so why what year did you arrive so in 2018 i came for the first time in the summer and then i moved here permanently in 2021 in the summer And it's changed quite a bit since then. For example, in 2018, in the center of Minsk, you walk around for an hour, you might see maybe four Central Asians from the former Soviet republics, but now you'll see all sorts of different people. Yeah, and they're going to school here, they're living here. But I'm not just talking about those kind of Asians. Now we have everybody here. We have Africans, we have Chinese, we have everybody. Indians. We do not have Filipinos, though. I forgot that Filipinos existed. I went back to California this summer, and I'm seeing Filipino people my age everywhere. And I'm like, oh, I forgot things. And then I'm thinking, oh, when I was a kid, there were a lot of Filipino kids my age. They all grew up, and now California is full of Filipinos. Oh, I grew up with Filipinos. Yeah, a lot of my friends are Filipinos. So let's get back. So when you arrived here in 2021, or was it 2020? 2021 when I moved here. Okay, so when you first got here, did you enroll in school? Yeah, I signed up for medical university, and I came here and I went to medical university. And you just graduated. Yeah, I graduated back in June. Congratulations, I wasn't here for that. Thanks. So congratulations. It's kind of arbitrary when you graduate medical school. it's ironic that they decide to make this weird delineation between medical school and internship. It's like, well, during your internship, you don't have a medical license. You can't write prescriptions on your own, legally at least. So why don't they just add that on as a year of medical school? I don't know. So are you trying to get your internship right now? Yeah, so I have to do a bunch of medical checks, and then I have to take an exam on Russian language, and then I will start my internship. I found a clinic that took me on. A lot of them didn't want to take me. Is it a paid internship? Yeah, you get about hopefully $500 a month. And that's about the average salary here in Belarus. But not in Minsk. In Minsk, I would say the average salary is closer to $750 a month. Yeah, that's probably right. But it's good for an internship you know especially if someone were you know 23 years old it's nice money if they're especially if they're sharing an apartment with some friend or living with their parents as an adult you know living on your own you cannot live off of 500 a month i don't care what people say unless you are like some auschwitz person who doesn't eat and even that like yeah you could find an apartment like you you can't find one in really desirable areas but you could find one for say How much do you pay? I pay $440 a month, plus utilities, which is about $100 a month. I'm lucky. It's way below market price. He has a nice apartment. It's like, what, three bedrooms? Technically, it's two bedrooms, but my bedroom has basically another room, but it's a closet. And it's over 1,000 square feet. Yeah, it's like 1,150. Yeah, so that's a big apartment for that. $300, you can only get like a 330-square-foot apartment here. Wow. So, okay, so you're going to go into an internship. When does that start? It starts as soon as I get all the medical checks done. Of course, you can't get them all done in one place. You have to go to one place, and then you've got to go to a bunch of other places. You know, this blood work is over here. That blood work is over there. Luckily, I don't think there's any dick swabs. Like when I got my permanent residency, Ed lucked out. I don't think you have permanent residency, do you? No, I had temporary residency. So every year you've got to re-enroll. I got mine because I own some property there. Yeah, and if you want permanent, well, you've got to endure the stick-up period. Oh, I didn't know that. And hopefully they don't mess up and have to redo it. I didn't know that. I was planning to drink up a bit before I did mine, and then I go, and the guy's like, we're going to do it right now. I'm like, I thought we were doing it when I come back. And he's like, no, let's get it over with right now. so when do you think you're going to be able to start after all the tests after they're all done i would say within two weeks okay so look in november december yeah i would say within november okay i mean end of october early november and so it's one year uh 11 months but basically one year and what what does that all entail what do you do during your internship so you choose what kind of internship you want to do and you could choose a surgical internship a psychiatric internship gynecological anesthesiological general medicine there's a difference though between general medicine for hospital general medicine and general medicine for clinic i chose clinic general medicine because i want to then do endocrinology and this is the straightforward path for that during your internship roughly once every week you change which base or no sorry not what base you never change but you you go to different hospitals and different clinics every week now you may go to the same one multiple weeks but you have a different cycle in a different department you have to choose where you're going to do each cycle you know one week could be pulmonology the next week could be hepatology the next week is diabetes now do they work you like a dog like they do in the states no that's where you have to sleep in a closet no so that's a big reason why i chose not to go to the United States was not my plan originally because you know when you're growing up and going to school and even when you're in university you you imagine that when you start working as a doctor and you do your residency and you your internship and when you work as a doctor that you work normal hours I don't mean normal as in a nine to five you know you get it doctors have night calls but you imagine that doctors work roughly a standard 40 hours a week no during your residency in the united states you work 90 to 100 hours a week and that is random hours so you got a 24 hour shift then because they're so gracious they say that by law you have to have at least i think it's eight hours off before your next shift so you do 24 hours and then you have eight hours to do the finishing paperwork to drive home to shower to eat something to go to sleep, to wake up, to eat something, to drive back and repeat. So I decided that was not worth my health. Now, am I kind of rethinking it now? A little bit, because I had a very relaxing last year. So I was like, hmm, I've relaxed. Maybe I could go through that. But ultimately, health is number one. It's nonsense. And the sad thing is, the mentality of a lot of people in the United States is, good, I'm glad it's hard. other people don't want to do it so it's like oh great so you're you want us to all have to ruin our health and like if we all just refuse to do it none of us would have to do it and none of us would have to ruin our health working 100 hours a week in a hospital but instead some people like i'm gonna do it i'm because they just want money or you know maybe they're asian and their parents pushed them to be a doctor and they just want to get that validation from their parents but i've seen this um also i've seen how students are in the u.s you know if you're smart you don't have to spend much time studying, but most people aren't smart, and they do have to spend a lot of time studying. You know, as people have told me, they've never seen someone study less than me. You know, I'll study for like 10 minutes, and I'll be like, oh, I studied, and they'll be like, oh, really? And I'm like, yeah, it's enough for today. So you should be done this time next year, then? Yeah, roughly. But just to finish things up, people are willing to do too much for something they shouldn't be doing if you have to stay up all night studying and smelling like ---- because these students smell like ---- i went to university in california they literally smell like they shitted their pants they're and i think even when they finish studying they're like staying up watching anime and you shouldn't go into medicine okay so when you're done with internship what are your plans then to do what's called professional retraining in endocrinology which can be done in about hopefully four months and which that is somewhat short to become a specialist in endocrinology luckily i'm already a specialist in andrology a subset of endocrinology but i'm also not to sound like a narcissist intelligent enough that i can learn the other stuff well enough in that four months now here's the interesting thing about medicine and it took me until about a year ago to come to this conclusion i was always angered that doctors are stupid they're stupid and they don't know very much these are two separate things knowledge and you think chat gpt is smarter than a doctor no chat gpt if you actually know your stuff and you ask chat gpt you realize how many mistakes it makes if you don't know something and you have you're like oh, wow, it knows everything, but it's because you don't know if it's right or wrong. I mean, even just today I was asking it something. It gives me a definitive answer in one direction. And then I phrase it a little differently because I'm like, eh, I don't think so. And then it gives me a definitive answer in the other direction. So a couple years ago you were looking to start up a clinic. How is that going? I'll answer in one second. I'm going to finish what I was starting to say about doctors with low intelligence and low knowledge. I came to the conclusion that there's kind of two categories: a doctor is someone we need these people even though they're not very smart and not very knowledgeable because it's better than nothing separate from that is like a master of the human body or someone who understands the human body real well, we can't expect enough people to be on this higher than doctor level because doctors, you can't expect them to all be so high because we need a lot of doctors. But yeah, I was going to start a biomedical laboratory. I worked on it for like 20 months. And when it was all ready, someone who was going to help with the finances decided to not help with the finances. So I had to figure out... Did I tell you who that is? Yeah, you did. You don't have to mention it here. he might be watching so what i don't think it's who you think it is but we won't talk about it so what's what was the emphasis on in this clinic was it anti-aging? i'm still anti-aging i'm not going to say exactly what my plans were i like to keep plans secret until they're done but in general anti-aging health optimization this is what i do in general i wish i had to say this at the beginning of the video if you're into health optimization um healing injuries without surgery or men's health you know you are a 40 or even 60 year old man and you want to feel younger perform younger you want to **** your mistress really well uh you should probably consult with me so that brings the next topic peptides so what what's your what's your belief on these peptides it's a huge craze now it's the new hype oh yeah some peptides in the united states peptides are not good but it's kind of like SARMs SARMs were the latest hype years ago why are these things hyped up because your local youtube influencer instagram tiktok influencer they can give you a referral code to buy stuff from their peptide websites and then even if they don't directly somehow seem to be benefiting there's enough money to go around you know it's like now i'm working on a supplement company and people go well there's a zillion different proteins already why would you make a different protein well because there's enough money to go around the same with the peptides if i had a peptide website now ideally i would have a direct link to my website with the person i'm paying but you don't even need to do that because if somebody hypes up peptides all of the peptide websites make more money they're making a lot of money they're making like a hundred thousand a month so it's like do these peptides anecdotally seem effective some of them do BPC 157 so we'll just break down a peptide it's just a it's just a formation of different amino acids yeah and people like to think that peptides are separate from drugs no peptides are a type of drug is it really a drug yes because they're just amino acids and what are amino acids they're proteins no so what amino acids tell me doctor amino acids are made of atoms carbon nitrogen hydrogen oxygen some places what are drugs made of carbon nitrogen oxygen well they're synthetic right so the peptides are something no not all terminology gets tricky but for example our body runs on different types of molecules you have peptides and you have what typically would be considered small molecules which is a weird sounding word and like oh are they smaller than peptides they can be but you also have some peptides of the same size small molecules are just non-peptide molecules that have drug action in our body for example norepinephrine dopamine serotonin these are not peptides yet they're natural and we can synthesize them and make derivatives of them synthetically peptides they also occur in our body just like dopamine norepinephrine serotonin but they have a different structure and we can also modify them the peptides you're injecting are oftentimes not the same peptides that your body naturally produces and even if it's the same peptide it's not the same peptide you know people don't understand why human growth hormone can differ so much it's the same human growth hormone the generic should be the same as the pharmaceutical it's 191 amino acids right well that's the one that they make There's multiple human growth hormones in our body, but pharmaceutically they produce that one. But the thing is, even if you produce that same amino acid sequence, every laboratory that makes it is going to be different. It's going to get secondary modifications. After the bacteria produce it, they're going to, for example, put sugars onto different positions. And depending on where those sugars go, it's going to fold a little differently. It's going to bind a little differently. It's going to have different effects. So GH used to be, they used to take it out of cadavers. Yeah, until like 1980s or so. Because then they started getting a disease, right? I don't know. They were getting a disease that was from the human brain, from these cadavers. So they stopped doing it. They were able to match it synthetically. Yeah, so we match one form of the HGH, because there's multiple slightly different forms. But like I said, even if you make it in a laboratory, it's different in every laboratory. It's not exactly the same as what we have in our body. But it's still pretty good. I'm not saying don't take it. It's great. So these peptides, they hit certain markers in our body. Now, for losing weight, they have the GLP. Those are effective. Now they have a new one where it hits three markers. It's the Retatrutide. Yeah, tell me the difference between the regular GLP-1 and the Retatrutide. So basically a regular GLP-1 is going to just make you less hungry and slow down your GI tract, how fast food moves through your system. Retatrutide is going to do that to a lesser degree, but still to a significant degree. And it's also going to increase your metabolic rate, how many calories you burn. It's going to liberate glycogen from your liver. So if you have fatty liver, very good idea to potentially use Retatrutide. It can get that, you know, it may... It gets rid of the visceral fat. We don't know if it directly gets rid of the visceral fat, but the way that fatty liver occurs is you have excess sugar. The sugar builds up as glycogen. Once the glycogen builds up, then fat starts building up. So if you want to get rid of the fat, you should get rid of the glycogen first, and then your body can start clearing out the fat. I mean Retatrutide will get rid of that glycogen and then your body can start burning the fat Okay, so what if you have an injury say you have a bad shoulder that you just can't get rid of What do you recommend in terms of peptides? I would inject BPC 157 directly as close as possible into the site of injury Unless that site of injury was a tendon then I would inject as close as possible within the muscle belly to that tendon Yeah, I probably wouldn't inject directly into the tendon obviously don't inject into a nerve that's a bad idea TB500 you can inject it in your abdominal fat or you can just mix it with your TB500 put it right wherever your injury is but the BPC it needs to be injected right where you got that injury okay and then what about if you you want better skin in terms of peptides, I mean there's always the GHK-Cu, yeah I don't have much experience. I heard some good things about that. It seems good. I can't speak from any first-hand or even direct second-hand experience working with people, but if you want your skin to be better, it doesn't have to do with peptides so much. It has to do with your diet, your lifestyle, and then if you did want to add pharmacological help, I would say human growth hormone and testosterone. Maybe add in a little nandrolone. Or water. Drink water. But the human growth hormone, the testosterone and the nandrolone will make you hold onto the water. No cola, no sugar, just drink water. And beer. Yeah. Now I heard, and one more thing on peptides. Now I heard there is one that I think it's MOTS-c. It speeds up in the metabolism. Like you don't have to work out on it. It's like working out. That's what I heard. I'm not going to comment on that one just because I don't know enough to say anything. Alright, yeah I don't know anything. I should look more into it, but for me it's kind of simple. simple it's too expensive for me i like to have tried things myself before i recommend them or inform people of them so i work with a lot of people but i don't like to inform people of things that i don't know from first-hand experience so overall what's your opinion on this new peptide it's a craze it's gonna die down like everything else but some peptides you No, human growth hormone's a peptide. Insulin's a peptide. These are good pharmaceutical peptides. GLPs are also really good effective peptides. All of the other stuff, some of them may be effective, some may not be. We don't have the data. I do think that BPC-157 injected near a site of injury does make a difference. I do think TB-500 makes a difference. Is it as good as people talk about online? No. i think that those are paid actors essentially you know people are like oh i'm injecting my dog see my dog was almost dead and now i gave it bpc and tb 500 and now it's young again i heard that yeah i heard that it's like i don't know maybe every case is different that might have just happened if you're gonna make if you can extend his life a year or two that's like 14 for us i know but i'm not saying that it wouldn't help the dog to improve i'm saying it's not going to go from some dog that's like barely alive to some dog that is running around all happy i helped my dog when she was 13 to live an extra year to 14 and to heal a broken i don't know dog anatomy very well but a broken hind leg yeah my dog got cancer uh he was nine at the time but actually was eight he got he got a cancer of the jaw and i thought oh i'm gonna have i'm gonna i'm gonna pay for to remove that cancer and then put him through chemo i spent twelve thousand dollars and he lived like another year it wasn't worth it yeah it's like uh so i heard some horror stories on on the GLP-1 or the retinitis about some people going blind it's like one in ten thousand so And it's also a spectrum. It's not, you don't go blind or you do go blind. It's like, it can be somewhere in the middle. And I even know a guy here who I make fun of because he's pathetic and we're no longer friendly with each other. It happens with expats. He could not lose weight. And he tried to blame it on me. We were working together. I was helping him for free because he was my friend. And he thought that he gained weight because of me. It's like, dude, you gained weight because you're eating like a pig, and I even explained to him, like, it's, I showed him the math, like, it takes quite a while to lose weight, like, if you add up the calories, if you're, if you got 40 pounds to lose, or 20, it doesn't matter, and you're gonna have a 300 calorie deficit each day, it's gonna take forever, but you gotta stick to it. What happens is people, they don't see progress in two weeks, and then they're like, oh, it's not working, I'm just going to start eating again. And then, but yeah, this guy, a mutual friend, that he got on, well, actually, I already knew he got on Tirzepatide because we were acquaintances at that time. But then I heard through our mutual friend that he actually got partial vision loss. And our mutual friend asked him, like, why do you keep doing it? Is it really worth it? And he's like, yeah, you know, I lost weight. But he can't see. Only partial vision loss. And it won't come back. I don't think so. Yeah. If it happens, if it doesn't come back in a week, it's never going to come back. I think that part of that cause could be low blood sugar. Yeah, I heard that diabetic people are more inclined to be blind. And for this reason, I think retatrutide is less likely to cause it. Because retatrutide liberating your glycogen is going to keep your blood sugar higher while you're not eating. Now, on the flip side, if you're someone like me, or even Ed, and you're really healthy and you're in great shape and you've got great insulin sensitivity, and if you can fast and feel okay, you might not need that extra glycogen liberation into glucose because your blood sugar already naturally stays regulated when you don't eat. if you are insulin insensitive or diabetic and you take a GLP and you don't eat, you have low blood sugar. It's not good. It's dangerous. So diabetics, insulin insensitive people, I would say only take retatrutide. So let me move to another subject. So how has life in Minsk, Belarus, has it changed since you moved here or has it kind of stayed the same? It has changed. For example, just the first one that came to mind is how girls, or even people in general, are towards foreigners. Now, in general, people are still very good towards foreigners. There are really no issues. But girls, whereas, and I'll go even before I moved here, but when I visited here, let's flashback to, say, 2018. If I was walking around, well, obviously I would have to speak because they're not good at noticing I'm not Belarusian. But say I went into a store and I spoke with a girl that was working at the counter. She would have been like, oh, wow, you're from California? Oh, wow, that's so... Now? Yeah, they're not doing that anymore. Nope. And actually, if you try to meet girls as a foreigner, I don't know what percentage, but let's just say half of them aren't even going to want to talk to you because you're a foreigner. And you're going, well, I'm white, I'm not a foreigner. It's like, no, you're still a foreigner. I can tell. Well, they know as soon as you speak to them. Well, it's the energy, too. We have different energy. We have completely different lifestyle. Like, there's a lot of foreign guys who come here who think that they fit in here. And I don't want to sound like the one who says, like, you know, my ---- doesn't stink, everyone else's does. I don't even perfectly fit in here, but I'm pretty close to being how people are here. And that's why I chose to live here. A lot of foreign guys, they come here with these preconceived ideas. Now, I only realized that after I spent a lot of time here, that, you know, I'm very similar to people here. But you have these other guys, they've never been here, and they're like, that's where I fit in. The people think just like me. I'm perfect there. They should want me to come to their country because I'm the same as them. Then they come here, and it turns out, no, you're not the same. You're very different. You do not. And these differences, they're not, you know, these guys will be like, well, I'm Christian. I'm white. I fit in here. I believe in family values. and it's like, there's a lot more to who you are than that. You know, I've lived in a few countries. I've lived in Prague, Czech Republic. I've lived in Warsaw, Poland. And when I first moved, it was in Prague 20 years ago. Most people spoke decent English. Now everybody speaks good English. Warsaw, nobody spoke English. Now everybody speaks English. Where do you think Minsk stands? It's on its way up, but will that course be the same as the rest of Europe? I don't know. Because when I first came here in 2018, young people, because they had to study English in school, they could speak some basic English to you. Basically, anyone who was not in school could not speak English to you. Now, definitely more people know English. I just don't know the future trajectory. I don't think it's going to project fast because they're not in the European Union. I kind of hope that they don't all learn English because it's like you don't need English for Belarus and Russia and China. You know, China's our partner. Well, Moscow you do. Moscow you need to know. You need to know English in Moscow. If you know Russian, why would you need to know English? Well, it's the international language for business. It's important, yeah, for doing business abroad. In the business sector, for sure you need to know English. And Moscow's a big hub, even though they're sanctioned from Europe and they still need to know English. But I would hope that it doesn't become popular for everyone to speak English because that will help deter more tourists from coming. I also kind of hope that we don't have direct flights to the U.S. and other places because I don't want more tourists. Like, I go to Vilnius, Lithuania, and it's horrible. I mean, it's a nice city, a nice country, but it's just all tourists everywhere. And I don't like that. I like just being in a normal place, normal local people, and you maybe think you're a hypocrite, you're a foreigner. It's like, yeah, I'm a foreigner, but I live here. This is my life. This is my home. I'm not going around and being a tourist. I don't like having lots of tourists. I don't like having lots of foreigners because it changes things. People all think that they're not impacting things, but they are. All right. So let's close this out on this topic. Where do you think you're going to be in five years? Give me a moment. All right. Now, where exactly geographically I will be... No, not geographically. I'm just saying. Personally. Exactly geographically, I don't know. But in terms of other things in life, I should be a licensed endocrinologist. I should have a successful supplement company. I will hopefully have started or be starting a biomedical biotech company. Hopefully have some kids. Hopefully own a home. Oh, okay. So hopefully five years from now it looks really good. Hopefully we're not all dead. It's aggressive. It's not impressive. No, aggressive. Well, I'm at that point in life where it's like hopefully your hard work finally starts paying off. I mean, I've had a good life, so my hard work has paid off. But hopefully it starts making a next step. Yeah. I think you're ready. I'm definitely ready because I'm done not having that. I expect big things from you in the next couple of years. Speaking of working on things, it's like trying to do business here. it's bad yeah i don't just say this because i don't want more foreigners to come here but it's bad i mean don't hire a contractor to work on your apartment even working with attorneys and and accountants it's like they'll tell you something like you hire them to help you with some process and then you do the process they say and then because you looked into it yourself you're like do i actually need to do this now and they're like oh we'll get back to you on that and they get they're like oh actually yeah you do need it so it's like if you didn't ask them because you looked into it yourself that that attorney who's supposed to be an expert on this matter would have messed up and in terms of messing up man it's like well i've worked with attorneys here they mess up on every single thing they do there's not a single thing that i've done with an attorney here that they didn't actually there was one attorney that didn't mess up on something but every other time whether it's filling out paperwork for the bank they mess up Creating your business, you know, because it's not like the United States where you just go in and sign and pay 70 bucks. It's a bigger process. They mess up. And then trying to do business here, we don't need to, I mean, I had a, I don't know, too much to talk about. I spent seven months working with a factory in Russia on making a sport health supplement, and they just gave up. Didn't you travel to some city in Siberia? No, not Siberia. This was in northern Russia. It sounds funny, but yeah. You're out in the middle of nowhere, just you, and you're trying to find the factory? No, I'm really glad I did this trip. It wasn't quite the middle of nowhere, but it was definitely desolate. How far from Moscow? It should only be like a four-hour drive, but here's the problem. when you when you at least at that time when you got into moscow you didn't have cell service or internet or gps imagine moscow's a big city imagine you rent a car in the center and you need to find this road that goes to that on the outskirts of the city so it's like you're driving all around the city trying to get on i drove through moscow for like four or five hours trying to get on the right road just to get out of the city because i i got on the road to exit to go in the wrong direction several times and then you get back on the highway and in moscow it's like you'll see a sign that says like this road left turn but then there's another sign that says different road left turn so it's like well which which left turn yeah okay all right so we got to close this out so um what what are what are uh some of the closing remarks you want to make about minsk i love it here i want to stay here but it comes down to money working as a doctor i won't make enough money here i've made enough money so far but things change and now i am not making enough money you need to go to the next stage yeah plus even if i make enough money i want to be able to own a home because if you don't own a home you can never retire basically yeah that's true so my goal is to have enough money to own a home here and eventually someday in the far future retire i don't want to retire anytime soon i want to build businesses but i want to stay here and within russia as long as i can afford to awesome well i want to thank you it was a great interview i appreciate it and i wish you good luck hopefully i wasn't just going too much all over the place. No, no, it was good. All right. All right. Thank you.