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[Music] [Applause] i wanted to be a doctor since i was six years old the human body fascinated me i watched in awe on tv and in the movies as doctors performed these life-saving procedures i entered medical school with a deep desire to learn everything that i could about the science of medicine and how the human body worked but then something happened to me that made me realize that health care was really broken and gave me a new perspective on what medicine was really about it was the summer of 1996 i was just completing my training when i received a late evening phone call from a desperate physician to pick up an extremely sick newborn you see the baby had a condition and his only chance of survival was to be placed on a heart lung bypass machine immediately when the team and i arrived we found a critically ill baby desperately clinging to life the parents gave their son a quick kiss on the cheek and off we went into the ambulance lights and sirens blasting by everyone's estimate there wasn't much time the ventilator was struggling to keep the blood oxygenation levels up and despite everything that we can do the blood pressure and heart rate continuously dropped by the time we got back to my hospital we were in full resuscitation mode including cpr but sadly time ran out and the baby died it wasn't much after that that the charred nurse informed me that the father had followed the ambulance and was anxiously waiting for me in the waiting room completely unaware that his son had just died now the senior physician in charge that night was someone that i greatly admired let's for the sake of confidentiality call him dr cunningham tim as everyone knew him was the smartest kindest and most compassionate doctor i had ever known the kind of doctor that i wanted to be like someday i saw that tragedy that night as an opportunity to learn a life lesson you see although i was very confident in my clinical abilities as a doctor the thought of telling someone tragic news still scared me to death i mean how do you tell somebody that their baby died i thought who better to learn from than dr cunningham so together tim and i walked down the hallway towards the waiting room we opened up the door to find a father who was frantically pacing back and forth and then what happened next was and still is decades later inexplicable to me this kind compassionate doctor that i had grown to admire simply blurted out my name's dr cunningham your baby died well the father he went crazy i remember he punched a hole in the wall he knocked the table lamp over and he made a scream and a sound that i had never heard before after a few moments of discussion and what seemed like hours of crying i took the father to see his son i spent a few minutes with him and then i left him alone when i walked back out into the hallway dr cunningham was waiting for me he grabbed me by my shoulders and he pulled me in really close and i can see that there were tears in his eyes and he said to me in this quivering firm voice do you see what i just did don't ever do that and he turned around walked down the hallway onto the fire escape and spent the next 20 minutes crying you see i realized that night medicine's not about science or technology medicine's not just about how smart or skilled you are as a physician it's not even about how kind you are as a person at its core medicine is about that human to human interaction between a patient and a doctor it's about the ability to convey your compassion regardless of whether you're delivering tragic news or you're meeting a patient for the first time but somehow we got away from that in the united states alone we spend trillions of dollars each year on health care and the costs are steadily increasing advances in medicine have led to state-of-the-art diagnostic tools and life-saving procedures and drugs that were unimaginable just a few decades ago yet studies still show that a significant number of patients are still unhappy with their medical provider in a recent internet survey that we performed 71 of patients who responded stated that they often felt a lack of compassion from their doctor 73 percent stated that they frequently left the hospital or doctor's office feeling rushed and without all their questions being answered and an amazing 39 percent stated that they had such a bad interaction that it led them to change providers the system's just not working medicine has become more and more about increased documentation electronic medical records and maximized efficiency doctors and nurses are being asked to do more and more work in less and less time professional burnout among doctors and nurses is at an all-time high and did you know that doctors now have the highest rate of suicide of any profession this has unknowingly and unwillingly caused us to become task oriented instead of what we should be patient oriented the good news is that together you and i we can begin to fix health care right now not by spending loads of money but by simply getting back to what really matters did you know that a patient who feels a connection with their doctor even if they met them for the first time is more likely to take their medicine more likely to follow up and yes have better treatment outcomes that's why a medical provider's ability to communicate and build trust is more important than ever so as a doctor how do i begin to build that trust well it starts off by first being a relatable person and a doctor second you know my mother used to say to me all the time she used to say anthony it's hard to fire your best friend no matter how successful i became she'd constantly remind me she'd say don't forget it's hard to fire your best friend i used to think why is my mother always so afraid i'm going to get fired it wasn't until much later that i realized what she was saying in her own way my mother was telling me to be nice to everyone but more importantly she was telling me to get to know everyone not just on a professional basis but on a personal level as well it's so important for doctors and nurses to take just a few minutes to get to know their patients each and every time and build rapport because once rapport is built trust will follow systems they're designed for the masses but medicine only works when doctors can treat patients as people one at a time good health care starts and ends with good communication so if you're a doctor and you're feeling rushed maybe becoming task oriented just stop recognize it sit down put your laptop aside and just get to know your patient imagine that you're the patient put yourself in their shoes and your natural compassion will just flow because once you can connect as two relatable people or as my mother would say as best friends that's where medicine works its best now you might be asking what can i do as a patient to make sure i get the very best health care well the most important thing is to know that your health care is more important than any system you control your healthcare because you can control the conversation it's okay to expect that personal connection with every doctor or nurse that you meet even if you met them for the first time so here's the secret next time you go to the doctor or the hospital unless it's an emergency don't talk medicine share something personal first if your doctor seems preoccupied or rushed that's okay ask them how their day's going tell them about a recent vacation you went on and asked them if they've had a recent one ask them if they saw the game yesterday i'll be willing to bet that if you do that you'll see your doctor relax perhaps even smile once you can connect and build that commonality the conversation will go so much better we have a choice we can continue on this path to impersonal health care or we can get back to what really matters a trusting relationship between two relatable people with one goal in mind your health thank you