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In this year-end episode of The Physician's Guide to Doctoring, I revisit  top episodes that resonated with listeners as well as MYSELF. The episode highlights conversations on nonverbal communication in healthcare with Blake Eastman, the impact of tiny habits in patient care with Dr. BJ Fogg, sensitive approaches to discussing weight with Dr. Stephanie Sogg, and the use of humor in patient interactions with Scott Dikkers. I conclude with a note on upcoming content and schedule changes, emphasizing the show’s commitment to enhancing physician-patient communication and personal growth.

More on each episode:

Nonverbal Communication from Behind the Mask with Blake Eastman

Published Jun 17, 2020

Blake Eastman is a guest like no other we’ve had. He is a professional poker player and founded School of Cards, the first brick and mortar poker school in the country and is the creator of Beyond Tells, a poker tells training site. He has a graduate degree in psychology and taught psychology at the City University of New York for six years. While he was doing all of that, he also provided consulting services to physicians, practices, and hospitals regarding nonverbal communication and conducted large scale independent research on nonverbal communication.

The current pandemic has hamstrung our ability to read nonverbal communication and convey it. We are either behind a mask or a blurry image on a telehealth visit. He teaches us what to prioritize with regards to our own nonverbal cues, how to optimize a telehealth visit, the importance of the cadence and volume of our speech, and cues for recognizing understanding.

https://www.schoolofcards.com/

https://www.beyondtells.com/

@blakeeastman

Size Matters Not: Tiny Habits for Big Changes with BJ Fogg, PhD

Published Aug 12, 2020

This interview is one of my most important. If you are doing to share any of my episodes, this is one that I would implore you to share with your friends, family and colleagues. This is part 1 of 2 of my interviews with BJ Fogg, PhD, author of the book Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. We all struggle to change our behaviors, to develop good habits and stop bad habits. There is a lot of popular wisdom about this and most, if not all, is just wrong. This is where Dr. Fogg steps in.

Dr. Fogg discovered the keys to changing behavior through changing habits. For those of you on medical school faculty, this should be a class. This should actually be taught in high school. Until then, as physicians, this information is critical, not just for lifestyle changes that can help patients eat better, move more, and smoke less, but even applies to checking their blood pressure and taking their medication. Popular wisdom is wrong. Guilt and shame are destructive. People don’t start habits by feeling badly, they start habits by feeling successful. And we are more likely to be successful by starting a habit that is small, that we actually want to do, and the third key to this is a prompt that reminds you it is time to perform the behavior. If you are going to learn piano, you start with chopsticks. If you are going to start to exercise, you do one sit-up. The smallest increment that you can fall back on when you motivation is waning so you don’t fall off the wagon completely and you keep your habit. And you do it at a point in your day that you can associate with the new behavior, even if they are completely unrelated. You’ll have a reminder that is baked into your day.

Dr. Fogg founded the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University. In addition to his research, Dr. Fogg teaches industry innovators how human behavior really works. He created the Tiny Habits Academy to help people around the world and interestingly, the Tiny Habits Academy long preceded the Tiny Habits book. He lives in Northern California and Maui.

He can be found at BJFOGG.com  and tinyhabits.com

When and How to Discuss a Patient's Weight with Stephanie Sogg, PhD

Published Jan 28, 2022

Back for her second appearance is Dr. Stephanie Sogg, a clinical psychologist who has been at the MGH Weight Center since 2003. One our previous episode, we discussed the importance of language when discussing someone’s weight, so on this episode, we talk about when and how to bring it up. We talk about how body acceptance is actually important to sustained weight loss, although on the surface it may seem like a contradiction. We talk about the influence of sleep, mental health, and when it is time to make recommendations, what actually works. As with most things, it is complicated.

Dr. Sogg earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Rutgers University in 1998 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with Harvard Medical School. In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Sogg conducts research on obesity and bariatric surgery, and the intersection between obesity and addiction, and has published widely on obesity and related topics. She is an author of the Boston Interview for Bariatric Surgery, and of the official ASMBS Recommendations for the Pre-Surgical Psychosocial Evaluation of Bariatric Surgery Patients. She is the director of the Weight Center rotation for Behavioral Medicine psychology interns and is active in national and international scientific obesity and weight loss surgery societies.

Learn to Make Your Patients Laugh with Scott Dikkers of The Onion

Published Oct 19, 2021

Last month marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Two weeks after that tragic day, The Onion, the famed comedy newspaper, put out an issue with jokes about 9/11. How did they do that? Scott Dikkers, one of The Onion’s founders teaches us how. His rule is that comedy is meant to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” That’s why they put out that issue. To comfort the afflicted. As physicians, that’s what we do! How can we be funny, even in the face of tragedy?

Mr. Dikkers teaches comedy writing and has turned what seems unteachable into a science. He has described funny filters and all comedy fits into one of those filters. He teaches us which are the best for the exam room, how to recover from a failed joke, how to work humor into our office visits and lectures, and what jokes comedians can’t use, but we can!

Scott Dikkers founded the world’s first humor website, TheOnion.com, in 1996. A few years earlier he helped found the original Onion newspaper. He’s served as The Onion’s owner and editor-in-chief, on and off, for much of the last quarter century.  He led The Onion’s rise from small, unknown college humor publication to internationally respected comedy brand.  He is also a New York Times best seller, and Peabody Award winner. 

He documented his process for creating humor in his book, How to Write Funny, and the second in the series, How to Write Funnier, and next on the way, How to Write Funniest, which are the basis of the Writing with The Onion program he created and teaches at The Second City Training Center in Chicago. Scott offers other courses and free resources for comedy writers on the How to Write Funny website.

Did ya know… 

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