In the premier episode of Telehealth Heroes, Brandon interviews optometrist Dr. Elise Brisco, co-founder of Hollywood Vision Center and the first-ever sexagenarian winner of the Ms. Woman California beauty pageant. She talks about using telemedicine to treat people worldwide, her patented technology that fights nearsightedness, and promoting her anti-ageist wellness platform from the pageant stage.
Episode transcript
On today’s episode. I’m going to put on my reading glasses because we get to talk to Dr. Elise Brisco are practicing optometrists and advocate of healthy aging and homeopathy and inventor, and most interestingly, miss miss United States pageant contestant. Dr. Briscoe, thank you for joining the episode today.
Dr. Brisco
Thanks for having me, Brandon. I’m so excited to be here with you.
Brandon:
Great. So first, how did you get into health care and being an optometrist? Okay.
Dr. Brisco
Well, there’s several physicians in my family and so I was always being groomed to be a physician. I was in the EMT in the emergency room when I went to USC and that’s how I put myself through school. So I worked the graveyard shift and I didn’t like it. And a lot of the physicians it’s, you know, it seems so sexy to be an ER, but actually a lot of the physicians were not happy. And my father had a friend who’s an optometrist who was just loving life. And I thought, that’s what I want to be. Vision is such an important part of our, our world even more so now, because we’re on digital devices all the time, back then we used to go out and play. Now we play on the computer. So, you know, I’ve become even more important in my patients’ lives. And I never looked back. I love being an optometrist.
Brandon:
Oh, that’s great. So I also see that you are the chief optometrists for the Anaheim mighty ducks and the LA LA galaxy soccer team. So question, when they miss a penalty kick, do they send the players to you to get their eyes checked?
Dr. Brisco
I did that many years ago, I was their team optometrist. And what I did with them is go to physicals. Do you make sure that they’re seeing well, but the Anaheim ducks took it one step further. I worked on their sports vision. So like speed of visual reaction, time, eye, hand coordination, and dynamic visual acuity. So at Disney ice, they were kind enough to buy equipment for me. So I could train the players how to react faster. And some of them, for example, I could tell by just doing their, their functional vision exam, that they would see things too soon or too late, or they would miss on the glove side or the stick side. So I went to, at that time, Tony Tavares, who was president of Anaheim ducks, and I would tell him, this is what’s going on. And he was like, how did you know? And I said, because vision guides motor, you react to what information your eyes tell you. So if your eye, if you’re you’re a little, cross-eyed, you see things closer than they are. If your eyes drift out a little bit, there is this visual, spatial mismatch, and your brain thinks because proprioceptively your eyes are drifting out that the target ball, puck, whatever it is is further away. So I train them to better use that eye, hand, eye, body coordination, connection better.
Brandon:
That’s really interesting. I need some of that sometimes just on like normal, you know, around the house tasks, because I’m so, so optometry is a very much a traditionally a hands-on. You have to be there. You look through the different devices to get your eyes checked. How have you held up through this COVID pandemic where going in person to some of these clinics and, and visits, it became harder.
Dr. Brisco
Well, we did a little bit of telemedicine before COVID, but COVID really is what pushed us into it. And I’m grateful because it’s my mission in life is to help as many people as possible and because of telemedicine and it’s no surprise, I used doxy.me. I’m a big advocate of your platform. I have been able to consult with patients from around the world who find me because of social media. I’m really big on Instagram. I have a holistic blog called at Hollywood eyes, Hollywood eyes, and also a YouTube channel Hollywood eyes, Dr. Lee’s Briscoe. So I’ll give you some examples of what we did during the pandemic, because my office was shut down for about two and a half months before they, they changed the definition and said, optometrists are essential workers. So we reopened, but I had one call in particular patient was smart enough to get ahold of me.
We signed onto doxy.me, and he was having a veil or curtain coming down on his vision. And a lot of little black specks and floaters within 30 seconds, I knew that he had a retinal detachment. I was on the phone with the surgery center while I had him on doxy.me. And I was saying, I don’t want you to be working out. You, you know, you can’t have too much activity and movement right now. We have surgery that night. So if, and I’ve had patients though, for example, cause I see a lot of entertainers I’m in the Hollywood area. My practice is Hollywood vision center. I had one patient who was in New York. This was before tele-medicine. She decided she did not want to see another doctor wanted to wait until she got back to Los Angeles to see me also retinal detachment, which is considered a visual emergency.
She lost her vision by then the retina had torn through the macula. She couldn’t see anymore. And if we had something as accessible as tell him telemedicine, I could be able to help those patients. Now we’re back in the office. However, I’m, I’m taking care of patients in Hong Kong and the Netherlands in Germany, in the Philippines in Italy because they find me and there’s not very many optometrists who are also holistic and do integrative medicine like I do. So they want to find out other options besides just taking medication or doing surgery. Maybe they want to find about vision therapy, like what I did with the Anaheim ducks. So I don’t need a physical exam for that. I can look at their history. I could even jump on the phone with their physician. And sometimes two minds are better than one. I’m not going to replace their local doctor, but I can give them an alternative viewpoint because unfortunately medicine is very traditional.
And I know that, you know, my grandpa was a surgeon. My uncle’s a cardiologist. However, I, I went back to school to become a clinical homeopath so that I can offer my patients ways to help their body help themselves help to strengthen their immune system help, to kickstart their immune system. And patients are hungry for that. And that’s why I’m in demand. And we’re going to my partner and I are going to start a new YouTube channel called more than meets the eye where we will offer our followers consultations. We were not going to be able to write prescriptions, things like that since we haven’t examined them, but we’ll be able to have a conversation and health coaching. So I doxy.me is, I mean, you guys were ahead of your game. It, it was a godsend and a savior during that time. And now it’s allowing me to accomplish my mission to reach more people.
And, and, and you know how that one-on-one. Oh, and can I talk about the tele-health fan? Because this is going to be one of your future guests. I recommended him Dion Rambo, who was a personal friend of mine. He started something in south central LA called the tele-health ban. We take for granted that everybody has a computer and has internet connection. Unfortunately, there are popular. There are, you know, whole communities that just aren’t as blessed as we are. And they don’t have internet. All they have is their phone, but they need to stay in touch with their doctors, with their loved ones. And he drives around. They have, I think 30 or 40 vans. Now the city of Los Angeles funds them to go to these underprivileged areas mainly in east Los Angeles and just park it and let people come in there so that they can talk to their doctor.
Brandon:
And you know what they use doxy.me. Yes, that’s exactly what they use. He designed his, he designed his vans around doxy me. So he’s going to be a guest and, and it, it, it’s helping people today. I think telemedicine is the future because even if my patients are within half an hour driving distance with me, I see a lot of celebrities. They’re busy, they’re on set or they’re filming a movie in Africa and whatnot. And before, you know, I had to, it was really hard to connect with them while they were gone. Now they love it. And because we’ll get on doxy me and they’ll say, oh my gosh, this is so high tech. I love it. I don’t mean I don’t have to drive into your office. They don’t have to drive half an hour, wait, check-in, I’m running late. You know, see me then drive all the way home.
Dr. Brisco
That’s like half of your day. This is, this is for busy moms, not just celebrities who can’t find childcare. This is for executives who just have enough time for FaceTime with the doctor, but they don’t have time to invest in making that drive and coming to the office. So it allows people to take better care of themselves. It allows me to be with my patients and I love it. And, and the other thing is before patients would say, oh, conductors, just write me a prescription. That’s been on medicine. If I’m on doxy me, I can say, okay, come here, look up. I can get close up and I can prescribe better. Even if just a red eye, it could be herpes. It could be alert allergy. It could be, you know, chemical burn. It could be bacterial viral, but it allows me to provide better care. And patients are happy to pay for the office visit rather than just expecting me to spend 30, 40 minutes calling in their prescription, charting, finding out what’s going on, reviewing their history. Now we’re having something that adds value on both sides.
Brandon:
Oh, that’s fantastic. And I love that you were such a huge advocate of, of Doxy.me and telemedicine. And, and what I’m really excited about is that you have this mission, your mission is to take this, this vision and to the world and the docs. And he’s actually a partner with you to help you do that. And can you talk more about this, this vision with a mission that you have?
Dr. Brisco
Yep. So as you know, I am Ms. Woman, California United States. I am one of less than a handful of doctors that have been crowned in a major beauty pageant. So I advanced to the nationals, which is the miss United States pageant, where I will represent. I’ve got Great state of California. I’m a California girl. Hey, not complete, not this Brandon
Brandon:
Tiara. Awesome.
Dr. Brisco
That’s right. If you’re nice to me, I’ll let you wear it one day.
Brandon:
This is my tr right here,
Dr. Brisco
Right? Yeah. So my platform is healthy living for healthy aging. And I want to help people embrace getting older by taking care of themselves so they can enjoy life as they get older. And this has been my mission, my whole life as a Docker and as an influencer. So the scary thing, and you know, this, you’re a physician too, is nine out of 10 people. Once you reach 65, have chronic illnesses, guess how old I am,
Brandon:
35.
Dr. Brisco
I’m almost 60. And I don’t want to become a statistic. What, yeah, this is, this is going on 60 couple months away.
Brandon:
I mean, for those of you listening, you have to like go to the video or go to her. I mean, so let me just describe her. She looks 35. And so this is shocking. That’s amazing. Incredible.
Dr. Brisco
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And this is, this is no plastic surgery or anything. This is me
Brandon:
Beat it, Hollywood at that too, with no plastic surgery. That’s very impressive.
Dr. Brisco
Well, you know, I didn’t want to become a statistic. So I became a spokesperson for the healthy aging movement. And I connect to people through social media, through public speaking, I’m writing a book called live your best life at any age. And I invented, you know, one of the things as an optometrist that patients I hear patients complain about for the last 33 years I’ve been in practice for 33 years is gay. Hate it when they can’t see what’s right in front of them, because they lose their near vision. You’re farsighted, you’re young, but you still need reading glasses. So you could be a near-site user. Also people, you know, they don’t want to carry this around. Right.
Brandon:
Firstly, they forget it. Then you can’t read it.
Dr. Brisco
So how many times have you gone to the restaurant? You’re like, people are like, where are my glasses? I can’t see the menu or they’re embarrassed. You know, they’re on a date or something like that. So wouldn’t you rather carry this, that has a reading lens on the back. It feels
Brandon:
For those listening. She’s got a cell phone case. And on the back of it, the magnifying glass slides out over in front of the screen so that you can actually see the screen for those who don’t have glasses, which is I think ingenious. So
Dr. Brisco
It’s a reading lens attached to the phone. It’s always there when you need it. I invented and patented this. I do this in my spare time, by the way, spiritually, we’re actually going out for our seed round now because we’re going to be launching in the next couple of months in manufacturer. But our, our product validation and prototype testing has been off the charts. People love it. They’re like, can I buy it now? Unfortunately, we haven’t made it yet. We’re we just finished our prototypes and product validation, but that’s called near-site and you can go on my website and your site.com. We’re going to be doing that. But you know, I didn’t want to become statistics. So I, I share what I’ve learned with healthy living. I’m a huge health and fitness advocate and fanatic. I’m a boxer. I’ve coached my son’s soccer team to championships.
Dr. Brisco
We won the city and went to all the way through regional and his little league. I was the only woman coach and his little league and faculty, you should kick me off the field because they said, no, mom’s on the field. And I coach first base when my team’s at bat. And I remember looking around thinking, what do you mean no moms? And they said, you, I said, I’m a coach. It’s just like, you have to, I have lots of stories to tell, but it’s just like when I was the team optometrist for the Anaheim ducks, I remember going down so I could examine them. And my office was in the locker room and they wouldn’t let me down and to the locker room. And I said, what’s going on? And they said, the decoy, the door for the decoys is over there. And I’m thinking, what the heck is a decoy? I said, I’m a doctor. So they called down president of the ducks, picks up and starts screaming at them. That’s Dr. Briscoe. We need her down here now to examine the players. And later on, I found out the decoys are their cheerleaders. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a little snap in the face for women.
Brandon:
Yeah. Yeah. And you’re the doctor, which
Dr. Brisco
Is yeah, yeah. Then lots of situations like that. But so, you know, I, I want to, my goal is by just being on stage, I have already motivated so many people to start living again. Cause I’m, like I said, I’m almost 60 people. My age, a lot of people have given up either. They feel marginalized because there’s so much ageism out there or they don’t have good health and that limits what they can do. So the best way that I can make a difference in people’s lives is through health education. I’ve been a doctor for 33 years. Integrative doctor comes from a family of physicians. I’m also a clinical homeopath. So I can offer people Western medicine and natural medicine. And that’s what I want to do as Ms. Women United States is to help give people hope, give them a way to do that by taking control of their health.
Dr. Brisco
Cause you can, you know what? I have so much more to offer now than I did when I was say your age, I have so much wisdom. Yeah. And, and you know, for people to feel old when they’re 40 or 50, you have half your life ahead of you. My goal is to inspire and motivate people on a larger scale. Cause I already do that, but I really want to reach more people if the magic of the crown so that they can take better care of themselves. I mean, all of the physicians listening here, I’m speaking to the choir because if we know that if you invest in your health, take care of yourself, eat better out sleep, meditate, feed your mind, healthy material, like listening to the doxy, me podcast. That’s good food for the brain in mind. You know, it, it allows you to age healthy. And I am, I’m just leveling up. I’m nowhere near stopping. Like I said, I turned 60 in a couple of months. And if you’re not my age now, Brandon, you’re going to be my age. So it’s never too early or too late to start taking care of yourself.
Brandon:
I’m going to stay young forever. I don’t know what anybody else thinks.
Dr. Brisco
Amen. Me too.
Brandon:
Awesome. Age is just a number. It’s, it’s a it’s what’s in your mind. That matters. And so I think that that’s so inspiring. So we often hear from providers, especially those who are in the later stages of their career. I’m not going to use the word old. I’m going to say later stages of their career. And they’re often hesitant to adopt new technology and try new things because it’s like, ah, yeah, I’ve gone this far. What do you say to someone who’s been a practicing for a long time and at the experience in their, in their career about adapting to new technology, but about using telemedicine?
Dr. Brisco
Well, these are my peers because I’ve been in practice for 33 years. That when I graduated, there were so few women doctors like one out of five. Now over half of a female medical school, concrete dental school graduates are women. But so to my peers out there, you’re smart enough to know better than this. If you can use a computer and you can search on Google, you can doxy. If you can Google, you can doxy. If you just it. And if you can FaceTime, you can talk to you, but don’t use FaceTime because it’s not HIPAA compliant and doxy, you can get payment right online too, which I like, but just you, you go to the doxy me site, you sign up and then give the patient the link they go on. And, and I’m sure my colleagues and my peers have been using zoom. We’ve been forced to it is now there’s no excuse because it’s become part of our culture, right? It’s easy to use. Your patients will love you for it. Love you.
Brandon:
Well, do you have any other stories about patients and their experience using telemedicine and the feedback that they’ve given you about it?
Dr. Brisco
No, but you need to hire me as your spokesperson for all the things.
The, the main thing is patients love the convenience. They don’t mind paying for an office visit. Whereas before they would say, just write me a prescription because, because they’re seeing you and, and they, they feel like this is an office visit now, especially because we’ve been working from home for the last two years, people have accepted that this is a way of connecting with people. Business travels, way down conferences are way down. Most of my meetings, even like LA county, optometric society, California optometric association, we’re all online near site. My team, my financial team marketing team, we meet online. So this is it’s convenient. It’s an accepted way to do it. Patients love it. There are still times you’re going to need to have them come in the office for a physical exam, but there’s so much you can do on a telemedicine platform. I just love it. Love, love it. Thank you for inventing. I wish I was part owner, but
Brandon:
No, the only thing that’s doing is it’s allowing you to expand your reach as well. Where before with just the office space, you were limited to the Hollywood area. And now it sounds like you’re going around the world, which is amazing. Something you could have done before.
Dr. Brisco
And, and you know what for emergency visits, I just had one late yesterday, patient who had a subconjunctival hemorrhage. She was concerned because her eyes looked like bloody murder. It’s eight o’clock at night. I don’t like driving into the I’m single working mom. I don’t like driving into the office that late. I tell her sign on with me done, done deal. I I’ve already known her. I know her history. I, I have EHR online charting. I could chart while I’m on doxy, me and solve peace of mind for her. She doesn’t have to wait for me to drive in or wait for the office to open the next day. And I’ve cut way back at the office. I’m only at the office a couple of days a month because I’m writing a book I’ve got NearSight that I’m launching. I’m Ms. Women, California. Hope to be Ms. United States.
So, Elise, all in all, has it been a good move for you to go to telehealth?
Dr. Brisco
It has added another level to my practice. And also now that I’m starting a new YouTube channel and as a health and wellness influencer, because my followers come from around the world and now I can offer them more than just information that I’ve produced. I can actually offer them a way to be in touch with me. And especially with dry eyes, I have to say for the dry eye specialists out there, it is the number one vision problem in the world. And becoming worse because we’re getting older are, are oily too. You’re making glands are getting plugged up and this is happening to younger people because you’re staring on a computer so much when you’re staring at a computer, your blink rate slows down by about 80%. The reason the brain does that is because the screen, the pixels are constantly being refreshed. So if you try to take a picture of a computer screen or a TV screen, you’ll see how it’s scrolling.
Dr. Brisco
So it’s not a stable image, like hard copy. So we T it’s much harder on the eyes and visual system to work on it on a digital device, but that’s the way the world is. So when your blink rate slows down, you’re not blinking enough to spread the tears to a moisturized lubricate and nourish the eyes. And so those oily, cheers, just hanging out at the edge of your lids. I’m pointing to my lids called the, my main and glands. And then they end up getting clawed. So they’re, they’re full of rancid, old oil bacteria plugs, and eventually the tears that your body makes can’t come out. So dry eyes is a huge problem. It’s overlooked. A lot of doctors dismiss it as something simple and just to use teardrops, but there are so many, so much new technology and a new way of thinking to take care of that.
And I’m, I am a dry eye specialist. I’m also illuminary for luminesce, which is the number one IPL laser company in the world. So I, I have patients who are desperate because they’ve seen seven doctors all over the country who have not been able to help them. And they find me somehow. And I do consultations with them through doxy, me too. And this is something that through symptoms, I can tell that they have dry eye and then I give them recommendations. And also they go back to their doctor and ask more questions. So, yeah, it’s great for dry eyes. And especially if you’ve seen a doctor and you’re wondering what else is there? There are a lot of self care. I call it my home ice spa that I can walk you through. That self care is, is self love. And you can do so much better if you take care of yourself at home, rather than just waiting for a pill to kill your cure, your ills or surgery. So again, my platform healthy living for healthy aging and the reason that’s been my platform for my whole adult life is because when my pay, I give my patients homework, they can partner with me to take better care of themselves. And the end result is so much greater.
Brandon:
What are some of the things that they can do self care at home
Dr. Brisco
What do I advise people in general for, for my, to live your best life at any age. And that is to realize just like when you’re on an airplane and they give you those oxygen masks. Yeah. You got to put yours on first before you put your families on. So if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re no good to your children, to your husband, your wife, your friends, self care is your first job. What we’ve learned this year in COVID is without health.
You don’t have anything. I mean, the whole world almost came to a standstill because of COVID. So if that does not show you how important it is to take care of your health, I don’t know what else is. That’s a perfect example. And instead of, you know, I’m, I’m fully vaccinated, but a lot of, of, of what I see covered online and doctors talking about is being vaccinated. Yes, that’s important. And then the treatment for it. But what people are talking about is what about the prevention? What about supporting your immune system, sleeping and good sleep? That’s so important to allow you to heal and regenerate and grow. If your child, a healthy diet, that means raw, real whole foods. If you eat processed foods, your body’s not getting the nutrition it needs. And then it doesn’t have the ability to give you the energy to fight off illnesses.
You’re you need to be strong for your immune system. Strong lots of energy use movement. As medicine. I work out every day. I have a sprained ankle now, but I’m still working out and I’m doing upper body. Yeah. Oh yeah. That up again. And you lose, you lose muscles every year as you get older. So it’s more important to workout. As you get older, you need to speed up. Not slow down, working out is important. So I talked about diets, Libra, oh, your mind, feeding your mind, healthy food. There’s so much junk out there. Sometimes I don’t listen to the news anymore. Cause it’s just, it’s just bad news and doom and gloom. I want to hear things that are going to help me become a better person. Ted talks, podcasts, you know, even social media. There is actually a lot of good on social media.
There’s people doing giving me recipe ideas, workout ideas, motivational ideas. And I want to hear the good news to lift me up. So that’s important meditation. I meditate every night before I go to sleep big on that. And that helps to clear my mind, quiet it. Because as you can tell, I’m, I’m doing a lot of things. My bandwidth is full, but for me to keep everything in perspective is I, I pray and I meditate. And that really has, has just done wonders to give me so much more bandwidth. So, you know, there’s so many different things that you can do, but it really starts with a healthy lifestyle. Depend on that to keep you healthy. Depends on that. To keep you from getting COVID, rather than just reacting, be proactive by taking care of yourself because there’s so many health problems that can be preventable.
And remember that stat I gave you at the beginning of our podcast, I said nine out of 10 people have chronic illnesses. Once they reach 65. And that scared the heck out of me, cause I’m almost 60. Most of those chronic health problems are preventable. High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol. I have really poor genetics. My family history is right with cancer. Four cases of breast cancer, prostate cancer, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes strokes. My baby brother had a stroke, but you know what? I decided I not going to be a statistic. I can’t control everything. I can’t change my genes, but I can change the expression of them by healthy lifestyle and give myself to help me beat the odds. And that’s why my platform is healthy. Living for healthy aging. And that’s why you, I want to get the United States. Crown, California. Crown has already helped me reach more people because I want to share that you can enjoy life through healthy, a healthy lifestyle.
It’s an amazing platform.
Brandon:
Thank you. What do you think the future of health care will look like?
Dr. Brisco
I think that most of it’s going to be televideo. Everything’s moving online. This is why I invented near site is because I wanted real estate where people are this. If they’re not on their computers, they’re on their phones. So I think almost everything. Now, we’ve been forced into this online world. I got my, my market, you know, groceries yesterday from online. Well, my food, my restaurants online during, during COVID, I couldn’t go out. I was doing, you know, I was doing my boxing workouts online. I represented a company called fit forever. I, my entertainment, I, we did family game nights with friends online and I saw my patients online. So not to, oh, you know, I don’t want to be just an ad, but you guys are on the right track in making this accessible so that doctors can do their job and patients can, can connect with their healthcare providers.
It doesn’t matter what kind of doctor you are even dentists. Yeah. You need hands on, but you can still have a consultation with a patient who’s in pain or has a concern like, oh my gosh. Well, yeah, I I’m an open book. I had a post put in and my body rejected it. So it came out. So I had to drive all the way to see my doc, my, my oral surgeon. And he said, oh, your implant fail. Yeah. I knew that I could have just pulled, he could have told me that I could have shown him online. I could have just cause he just pulled it out. But that for the same way, you know, an hour of canceling appointments and driving over there. So I appreciate televideo to, for meetings for healthcare. Yeah. And you know, friends that I hadn’t seen for a while. I, you know, we had girls’ night and we got to hang out. Whereas before, because we’re moms, we’d be like, oh, I can’t get a sitter tonight or something like that. And that’s the same thing with senior doctor. It allows patients to go see their doctor more regularly, easily convenience X, you know, at, at your leisure. It’s great. Yeah.
Brandon:
Okay. So at least final question. When is the myths United States pageants?
Dr. Brisco
Yes, it is the first week in October. So your podcast will probably air after that and I will do a followup with you to let you know whether or not I won. And I also want to go on your private plane with you.
Brandon:
Don’t have one of those. Let me say Dr. Briscoe, this has been so much fun. We are absolutely going to be cheering you on and we’ll make sure the doxy.me family’s all there cheering you on. And so you were one of us, so thank you for your time and the mission. And we’re so glad to be on the same, same team with you. And, and we want to see your mission that you are pushing forward to be successful.
Dr. Brisco
Well, thank you for making me part of your family. I’m honored and touched. I really, I mean, even before you asked me to be on this podcast, I had already given you many shout outs, I’m a big doxy.me fan and thank you for making this accessibility and connectivity so much more readily available.