The Trusted Messenger Podcast
There are no more trusted messengers in America than health care providers. But they aren’t trained or supported in communication. We’re here to talk about that. And to change it.
The Trusted Messenger Podcast
Common Humanity & Health Communication (w. Dr. Margot Savoy)
Dr. Margot Savoy, Chief Medical Officer of the American Academy of Family Physicians, joins Chad and Todd to talk about the pros, cons, and cautions of social media, the tension between what you learn in med school and what patients want in the exam room, the necessity of engaging patients both in-person and online, and the need for common humanity in health communication.
0:00 Intro
1:40 When Todd Met Margo...
3:58 The Wild, Wild West of Social Media
5:31 The Best Social Media Platform is...
7:35 Questioning & Challenging the Discourse
10:54 If You Like Us in the Office, You’ll Love Us Online
12:07 Serving Patients in the Era of Algorithms & Instant Gratification
14:03 Finding & Normalizing HCPs
16:22 The Lessons of Selfies & Sourdough
20:20 Social Media Abhors a Vacuum
22:44 The Trust You Have is Transferrable
24:30 The Value of Social Listening (Before it Was Called That)
26:35 Building Trust By Admitting What You Don’t Know
31:00 Med School Doesn’t Teach Us to Be Warm & Fuzzy
35:42 We Just Need to Do Better
37:28 This Core Idea of Humanism
39:46 Your Single Best Diagnostic Tool
41:02 There are at Least Four Truths
43:41 Real Trust & Connection by Just Being You
45:31 The Three Most Important Words in Communication
46:30 You Should Come Back Next Week
New episodes drop every Friday. Video versions here.
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Good communication is essential to good health care.
Hi, and welcome to the Trusted Messenger Podcast. I am your co-host, Chad Herman, along with your other co-host, Todd Woolen. And Todd, this is a very exciting episode for us. First of all, it's episode two, but it's guest number one. And we purposefully chose guest number one because we, first of all, we love her, and second of all, we knew that she would bring the noise and the funk. Um Margo Savoy, and Marg's got a tremendous set of alphabet soup credentials, and we're going to go through all of them. So buckle in everybody. Margo Savoy M D, M P H, F-A-A-F-P, F-A-B-C, C P E, C M Q, and finally, F-A-A-P-L is Chief Medical Officer for the American Academy of Family Physicians. And she is also, and this one excites me very much because there's a major Philadelphia connection here, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Urban Bioethics, and Population Health at the Lewis Catt School of Medicine at Temple University. And that's all the time we have for today. So thank you for joining us. Oh no, wait, wait, we haven't done anything yet. We've just gotten through this. And we and we actually aren't even done introducing her. But Margo, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00:It is 100% my pleasure.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:I will just uh uh uh uh repeat thanks. Margo and I go way back to the early days of healthcare social media. So this is uh this is a a particular treat to have you on the on the on the show.
Chad Hermann:All right. So let's talk about that because one of the things that we love to talk about at Trusted Messenger Program is the absolute necessity, the essential nature of social media for healthcare providers in 2025 and really for the last 15 years before that. If you aren't there yet, let's get caught up. So tell us your origin story, the two of you, how you met, and then Margot, let's hear how you were such an early adopter for healthcare provider health social media.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I wish I could tell you it was that dark and stormy night, but I mean, it wasn't that exciting. So we were just both um, we were both doing some really cool work with the national HPV roundtable. And so they had all of us come together in a room to meet each other and sort of understand what was going on, sort of in the national HPV vaccine landscape. And we were hearing a lot of crazy talk about people really being very stressed out about having conversations with people, about using the vaccine, about fears about the vaccine, which for me was a little bit of an eye-opener because I didn't think it was that controversial. Um, and so when I got there and we sort of had a bunch of conversations, and me being me not long before that, um, a really good friend of mine, Mike Sevilla, who does a lot of um tweeting at the time, I don't know what we call it now, but it was tweeting back then um on social media. It's no tweeting. He was like, I need you to do this thing, so I'm not talking to myself. And I was like, I don't know that I want to do that. And he was like, no, seriously. And I'm like, but I don't, I don't, why would I do that? And I realized that, like, well, you know what? A great reason to do that is so you could tell people where you're at and the things that you're doing. And so I was at this HPV meeting telling people that I'm at the HPB meeting, and then Todd is over on the other side telling people he's at the HPB meeting, and then I'm like, who else is tweeting with the same hashtag as me? What is this? I'm like, oh, it's you, dude. You're on the other side of the room, and it's been glorious ever since. Now I have a friend.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:And you know, for any of you that know me out there, once you get me out of my show, I'm uh I'm I'm just actually I don't have a show. I'll talk to everybody. But Marco was coming up to me and talking, and it was like boom, it was it was just yeah, it was perfect. It was great.
SPEAKER_00:You know, what's crazy is you were telling us a story about your practice because back then um was around around, it was around about the time when you know a lot of things had gone crazy in social media and people were just being really ridiculous. And I just I thought it was really transformational because it made me think about sort of the pros and the cons. And I think it's one of the reasons why sometimes docs and like other healthcare folks shy away from social media because they're afraid that either they'll lose their job so that if you're employed by somebody and they don't like the things you say, you get yourself in trouble, or you could lose your patience because if your patients find out you're an actual human being and not just a robot that sees them between nine and five, like that could be really, really scary and damaging to your reputation. And it was interesting just listening to him talk through what his practice had to do and how they had to navigate and what that looked like, that it made me think a lot about what do organizations expect from you and do we have policies? And back then the answer was no. So, like, you know, it feels like it was not that long ago. And yet back then it was sort of the wild, wild west. You do whatever you needed to do. You hardly even had a disclaimer that said I'm only speaking for myself. And now people are so much more sophisticated. And so I I agree with you for the folks who are not yet doing social media, pick the one you like. So, I mean, people overwhelm you, they want you to do all the things. And I don't know that I'll ever get on Instagram for real. Like I show up because I'm supposed to show up, but like I, you know, you don't care what I had for breakfast this morning. It really wasn't that pretty. And the photo with everyone, it just feels like an overwhelming amount of stress. But I, you know, I think there's a place for everybody and a place where your voice can be heard. And so I encourage the same way you do, like, just try it, see what you think.
Chad Hermann:You know, I I love that wisdom that the best workout is the one that you will actually do and enjoy. And I think that that same wisdom applies to social media. I mean, ideally, you'll be in lots of places. You'll also ideally you will be on the platform where the vast majority of your patients are. However, if you're on that platform and you aren't reeling, posting, tweeting, TikToking, it doesn't really matter if your patients are there. So I think sometimes the best social media platform is the one that, to your point, Margo, that you enjoy that or that you're good at and that you will do fairly regularly.
SPEAKER_00:And I also like to hang out on Facebook because there's a lot of foolishness happening in Facebook, and it's a lot of my older patients, and they come in with some crazy stories that I would not believe, except that I saw it on my timeline too. And so, like, that's the other idea is that if you're not really into always chit-chatting in the space, lurking around like a troll is only bad if you decide to actually troll the other people. You could just be silent and exploring what's going on and hearing the conversations, and that also helps.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:So, my question for you would be, and and also I'd love examples of places you think are doing good jobs because that's going to be one of our one of our goals in this show and other shows that we're doing is calling out communication done right. At the core of this show is learning about communication and at the end, trying to figure out how it can help healthcare communication, ultimately to drive better care, right? It's all based on trust. Healthcare providers are trusted, but healthcare providers, and we've talked to nurses, pharmacists, docs, PAs, MPs, aren't trained in health in communication, right? I mean, in my residence, the most communication training I got was like mock patients that we had to interview to like learn how to take a history as if like that was all that was important. And here we are in 2025. And what we're hearing from almost every healthcare provider, all those different settings, all different ages. Every visit's taking longer. I go in on the back of my heels because I don't want to get into a fight. I I I'm uncertain what to do. Sometimes I just skip making certain recommendations, like communication face to face or online. Like what where where's the path forward, Margo?
SPEAKER_00:I think it's an and. So I don't think that it's an either or. What I find is that there are some things that people will look online because they want to be able to explore and get themselves ready for their visit, or you've said something during the visit that they weren't ready to deal with and they want to explore and have, you know, the way I best think about it is sort of your introverted reflection time. Like you just you just need a moment to gather yourself and you wanted to get more information and you wanted to research it so that you feel like you have a handle on what you think is going on and your feelings about it, and maybe some people who you know or who you trust in your in your general life who maybe have gone through a similar thing or have had a similar experience. And so you just want to test the water. And so sometimes it's that side. So they're bringing things into you or following up on the other side. And then there's this in the office where you want to have the actual conversation. So I don't necessarily only want to talk to my doctor online, but it does help if when I tell my doctor about the thing that I saw online, they're not looking at me like I have three heads or have no idea what's going on, um, because that doesn't feel as relatable and it doesn't feel like maybe you fully understand what's going on. And then from the from my side, I mean, part of the reason why I stayed and why I stay even in some of the places that I don't always enjoy the conversation is because it's where I hear about the misinformation and the disinformation that's going out in space, so that I have a chance to correct it for people both in my daily life. So, like my friends and family are on social media too. And sometimes they say things I'm like, ooh, no, like we got to fix that. Um, but then there's also like your community. Like I still do a lot of community service and showing up in spaces and being able to tell other groups of people like, hey, I don't hate social media because I actually don't, but it's actually not as safe as it feels. And so that's one of the things to me that's a little bit spooky about it, because you start to get to know people. I mean, I I just told you my Todd Margot origin story, but I actually met Todd in person before I met Todd on social media. So he was a whole human being before we started to talk on social media. When I talk to some of my cousins who are like younger, they've got friends that they've never actually met in person. They've only ever met them through Xbox or through, you know, online talking. And like that person could be that person, but I guess I'm just old enough to have seen enough episodes of catfish that I don't believe any of them people are who they actually say they are. And so, like, how do you know that's really who you think they are and that they're really showing up as the right person? And so teaching people that, not just for the doctors, but also for the patients, to me has been really important. And so I love this idea about just talking about responsible social media, kind of question and challenge. And that questioning and challenging honestly should be also translated into your office visit. Because if I say something to you and either it's confusing or it just sounds crazy, it really helps me if you tell me that what I said to you sounds confusing or crazy because I think I made sense. And when you leave, I think you're good. And if it turns out you're not, I didn't get done what I intended to get done either. And so this discourse, the idea about having a conversation is really important to me. And so I think it's an and. Like I think you've got to have space to go out, reflect, and have trusted places that you can go and know that the things you're getting are probably reasonable, and people who you can bet it against if you're not sure. And then a safe place where you can have a face-to-face conversation about those more private or the questions that come up or the more intimate things that you just didn't necessarily want to post out for everybody to hear about.
Chad Hermann:Amen to all of that. And I think one of the things that that that Todd and I, you know, try to tell people when we're talking about the use of social media is not just that it can be, but that it has to be the and. And those two things fuel each other, right? At Kids Plus, we used to have a sign in the exam rooms that said, if you like us in the office, you'll love us online. And they did. And they did, right? And and we all know because we all have our favorite HCPs of our own. And we know that we like them, we respect them, they take good care of us andor our family members. And what they speak is often absolute fried gold, right? We want more of it. We we look forward to seeing them and hearing from them. And so we tell people those patients look forward to seeing and hearing from you maybe once a year, maybe two or three times a year. But now they have an opportunity to see and hear from you every day, literally every day. And the opportunity that you have to reinforce what you've done in the exam room, and then as you were saying, also to start conversations that can then be followed up in the exam room. Again, it goes both ways. I think that's just absolutely essential. It's just tremendously important.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:I I want to can I segue off that please? That that the times you can see them, like you said, maybe twice a year, maybe three times a year, maybe no times a year. But don't forget, we live in a just we live in a just-in-time society now. When it comes to I have a question, I'm gonna go get an answer. Now, in the olden days, uh, like maybe uh for sure you still uh took time to get into your doctor's office, but maybe that was the best resource you had, and other than the Encyclopedia Britannica, you couldn't look it up. Kids, that was a book set that people sold door to door. It's a long story.
SPEAKER_00:It was priceless.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:Yes. But now, and they were a lot heavier than a smartphone, too. I mean, there were just volumes of them. But now we are in a combination of one, it takes forever to get into your PCP, two, maybe even a long time to get a portal message back. And three, you are used to getting immediate gratification to an ant to a question when you want an answer, which is using that device. And so, you know, you could say even five, six years ago, if you were on a social media platform, everything you blasted out pretty much reached everybody that followed you. We know that's no longer the case. We know algorithms are such that you can blow, you could have, we had what, close to 14,000 followers, but some posts might only reach a few hundred. Um, right. Just the algorithms. What can you do? But because our families knew we were on their favorite social platform, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it was, they knew they could at least go and see what we had to say on a breaking issue or jump in for some bi-directional dialogue.
Chad Hermann:Margo, let's go back to the the wild, wild west, the good old um crazy early days of social media when you and Todd first got on and were carving out tweets um on cave walls or um, you know, with quill pen. What was it that got you on? What got you started? What was the impetus that said, you know what? I'm gonna go on social media and as a professional and have a presence there.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, honestly, I got bullied into it by a friend, but the bigger side of it was that it was an opportunity to talk to other doctors. So, like, I did actually get on social media with the intent of talking to patients. Patients found me and then were fascinated. Funny how that works. I show up the same way in social media that I show up in real life. And so they found it amusing to them. A, that like, uh, you know, I actually have a life and I do things. I'm like, you know, this is me at the football game. I'm like, that actually was me at the football game. And you knew I was going to the football game because we talked about it at your visit. And I really did go to the football game. So there was something sort of normalizing about you as a human. And I think people found that interesting. I mean, I just think they found it interesting. Um, I'm not the most exciting person, so I, you know, I don't have weird controversial things that I tend to post. I'm not really that person, but I do find a lot of things to be interesting, and I like being able to help people understand things that seem to come up. And so when I get asked questions or things keep coming up, I tend to talk back to the groups that I think would find that interesting. So I tend to talk to a lot of medical professionals. I spend a lot of time talking to residents and medical students about how you get in the residency and why you want to go. And then it turns out there's high school kids in there and they might want to think that they could be a doctor someday. Here's the things I know. So, you know, I follow this and that, and they told me that there's this program. If you're interested, I'm gonna throw this out there for you too. Because to me, anything that could help somebody get something good out of that interaction to me is worth posting, retweeting. I'll retweet all day. Um, why recreate the wheel if you've already done something great? It just seems to me it's much easier to just retweet the thing. Um, and so I don't have to always be the most original person or the most exciting person, but being able to put things in a place where patients could find it or where people could find it really important to me. Um, and I I think a lot about the fact that I know I'm not a content creator. So like I I don't spend all day sitting around thinking about you know how I'm gonna line up the perfect breakfast to be able to share it to do whatever. But what I do do your lunch in a pinto box, you know, like yeah, I'm not that cool. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I mean, like, and here's a cheese stick. Um, but like from a practical perspective, what I what I do like to do though is like show up in places and go places. I was a selfie girl before people even had phones that could flip around because I just like to take pictures and I like to recognize that I'm there. And so that part for me was a lot of fun. So, like, you know, at one point, you know, everywhere I showed up, I would take a selfie with person just to prove that we were there. I got a whole wall in my basement of actual printed out photos of me, selfies of people. It's my friend wall. There's just a wall of people. Now I realize that makes me old because I printed out the pictures and hung them on the wall.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:But for me, how that works. That's how this works.
SPEAKER_00:That's that sweet commercial. It's the best commercial to me because I'm like, but that's perfect.
Chad Hermann:Yeah. Margo, are you one of those people who prints out the internet? Is that you?
SPEAKER_00:You know, not all the time, but the recipes are hard to follow on the phone.
Chad Hermann:Amen to that. Wait, yeah, wait. So it's so is Todd on that friend wall. Is there a is there a Margo at Todd on that wall?
SPEAKER_00:But it's interesting to me because like you can find so many things. And so, like, some of it was just I just want to tell you about what I found, I want to connect you to you. But then there's things like you know, recently I figured I would start to try to do sourdough bread because I don't know why. Apparently, while the rest of us were like trying not to die during COVID, the whole rest of the world learned how to bake sourdough bread.
Chad Hermann:And I just missed literally everyone but you, yes.
SPEAKER_00:So I, you know, I started off in book talk and then I rolled into the sourdough place, and people are talking very, very stressed out about this bread. And I was like, this doesn't seem that complicated. How hard can it be? It turns out it's actually not so bad, but now I've started watching video after video and people, and there's people that I like, and I realized this is exactly what your patients do all day long. So they're at home, they have a question, they're thinking about a thing. This weekend I wanted to make dinner rolls, and I was like, I want to make dinner rolls. And so for like two days, I was looking at videos of people and their dinner rolls and trying to decide which one I wanted to try to make and whether or not it was gonna work and how it was gonna be. And I think they do the same thing when they come to see us in the office. So you come in, and I'm like, you've got strep throat. They're like, strep throat sounds familiar, but I want to go see what everybody else did. And like, did you use honey and water? Did you use something else? My grandma used to give me a hot potty, and this is how the thing worked. Like, they want to hear all those different stories, and then they sort of come to their own conclusion. I don't know that any one of those sourdough videos was completely right, and I don't know that any one of them was completely wrong, but there were some themes that very clearly came through that made it much easier for me to think about what a starter is and how a starter works and why I think it works and what I want to do more about it. And it made me better able to do the thing that I wanted to do. So it was about me first and then all the other things happening. And for patients and for patient care, like it's about them first. Like they're showing up and they've got a point of view and a question, and they want to be put in the center. So it's not just about what Marga wants to tell you at the office, is it? It's about what you want to learn more about and what you want to know about. Now, I may need to try to plant some seeds, and certainly they throw you videos after a while, right? So they're trying to plant seeds and make you look into things, but that doesn't mean you're gonna click on all those. So, like, how do you get the people to want to click in and want to actually be engaged with you in the office? And I think there's something to be said for thinking about how we engage much in that way and having the opportunity to do it over time because you build relationships with people over time. To me, that's not much different than there are some people who like show up in my little Facebook reels because I never really got into TikTok, but I get the little Facebook reels, which essentially is just TikTok only in the old people's face. And like, I gotta tell you, there's some people who I'd be sad if they didn't show up in my little feed because I'm used to seeing their little face. And so they get up and they do their comedy routine. I'm like, hee hee, you're back again. Imagine if that's you and it's you as your doctor, and you're just feeling like you have this relationship with the person. And when you do actually see them in person or you do need to ask a question, you just feel like your anxiety. Just a little bit lower. You feel like you can actually have a discussion or conversation. And maybe that could make some weirdness because it could get a little too overfamiliar, but you can correct for that, right? I mean, like you can navigate that space, you can be thoughtful about what you're posting, how you're sharing it. You know, certainly you're not going to be putting your address out there for people to just show up at your front door, but there's ways to be thoughtful about these things.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:Now, I do want to add to that because the audience for this show is going to be broad. It's going to be healthcare providers, but it's going to be entities that employ healthcare providers oftentimes. So integrated delivery networks, health systems, hospital systems, professional medical organizations, you name it. And I think, you know, exactly what you just did there was normalize, I don't know, Chad, 90% of the population's current engagement with social media and their real lived experiences. And again, you wanted to see the people that you knew, that you trusted, that made you laugh, right? I bet you didn't say, you know what I'm looking for is a heavily bulleted slide with some very corporatized music, branding and marketing a product for me that kind of shoved down my throat. You want to go where there's trust and where there's engagement and where there's education, and if it was done right, entertainment. And I want to say to the audience out there, Dr. Margot Savoy is literally telling us the story of the vast majority of the current population. And on the flip side, no, we are not saying that every individual healthcare provider needs to be making content and putting it out there. But I would absolutely tell you that if when we keep describing what corporate top-down marketing looks like, I'm trying to explain that it's missing the mark. And it's not only missing the mark, it's turning people off to that channel forever to look for other sources. Typically, and the data's starting to show us this, that they're happy to seek out somebody who has a similar condition. They also have a sore throat. Let me see what they have to say. Because if their healthcare provider, who they trust, or at least their practice, doesn't have a voice on that platform, they're going to go elsewhere. They aren't going to your corporatized messaging.
Chad Hermann:That's correct. And it goes back to Margot's point about making the sourdough. If the people who actually know how to make sourdough aren't online, then all she has are people who don't know how to make sourdough or who make crappy sourdough or who are selling essential oils and passing them off as sourdough, the vacuum gets created. And that is where the false narratives rise like the dough, if the people who actually know what they're doing aren't on there as those resources. One other thing I wanted to say is a follow-up to what Marg said earlier. When you were talking, Margot, about it's just humanizing you as a physician, as a healthcare provider, that's so incredibly important. In the same way, Todd, you were talking earlier about people are more apt to look at and find information in their social circles online, people they feel comfortable with. If Dr. Margot is showing up in their feed regularly, and even if it's just retweeting or reposting, they're seeing her, they're hearing from her, they're seeing her at a football game, and it just makes that personal engagement, that connection that much more powerful. And when you have that personal connection, that makes you trust that person more. And when you trust that person more, then you listen to their advice when it's in the exam room or online. One last thing I want to say about that, because I loved Margot your point about maybe you aren't making a lot of content, you're just reposting or retweeting or sharing lots of things. Todd and I talk about this and we talk to healthcare providers all the time. If you don't have time to make content, sharing other really good content and giving it your seal of approval, that could literally be your entire fee. That could be your TikTok, your Instagram, your Twitter, your Blue Sky, whatever it is, because that trust that you have as a provider is transferable when you say, here's a great source, here's a valuable piece of information. Listen to this nurse practitioner saying something really cool that will help you. Um, amplifying other voices can be as powerful as using your own in terms of the reaction your patients are gonna give you.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, and for the clinicians, one of the things that I found helpful really early on, and partly again, I mean, we started um, we started this around the HPV time, and people were just saying really weird things to me. So, like the things that they were telling me about in the office were just really odd. And so they're like, there was one where there was like some girl that was walking backwards, and I'm not gonna argue about whether she was really walking backwards or not walking backwards, or I mean, I never met the girl. I have I have no ties to her or anything like that. But what I what I didn't know was what they were talking about. So literally, I'm a nosy person, it's why I'm a family doctor. I just I got questions, I want to know more. So, like I I was I just asked the can you just show me what you're talking about? Like, I really have no idea what you're talking about. And so, of course, the patient calls it up and they show me the thing, they're telling me about how they've sent it to like all these people. And I'm like, So, are you worried that you're gonna end up walking backwards or that your kid's gonna end up walking backwards if I give you this shot? Like, that's the concern. And she was like, Yeah, because I got it from it. She starts naming who she got it from. And in her life, these are very trusted people. So, like, it's not that she got it from some evil, weird place that tried to plant a video on her feed, she got it sent to her by somebody else. And I'm like, Well, let's talk about that for a second. So, I'm not at all judging the other person because they got it from somebody that they probably trusted to you. But I just wonder, like, what's the original resource? Like, where's the source that it came from? And she was like, Why would you ask that question? And I'm like, Well, because even like when people give me like a research paper, like I go back and look to see where the research paper got their stuff from because sometimes people just misunderstand. And so, could we just go back to the beginning? Could you just show me the beginning? And so we went and tried to look and we couldn't find it. And I'm like, the fact that we're working this hard and we can't find it, I wouldn't trust that video yet. Like, I would need to see something else. And so I'm like, keep looking. And if you find something, come back and share with me because you're not the first person to say it to me. But I just I thought people were kidding, and then I didn't realize it was a real thing, and now it turns out it's an actual thing. I would really love to know more about where it came from. So if you find it first, let me know. If I find it first, I will let you know. And what's been interesting to me is that like for me, patient care is so cool because it's bi-directional. So, but like what's interesting to me is that like they don't think they have something to talk to you about or to teach you. And I learned things from them just as much as they learn things from me. And sometimes we learn things together because I am not above Googling the whatever it is while we're sitting in the exam room. Because you know what? That's a great question. I have no idea what that is either. And I think again, when you think about trustworthiness and things that make me trust you, if we get in the car to go on a trip, and Todd says, I'm gonna drive, and I'm like, Todd, do you know where you're going? And Todd's like, I know exactly where I'm going, and we get lost on that trip. There is nothing Todd will ever be able to say to me again that's gonna make me think that he actually knows we could go on 10 more trips where he knows exactly where we're going. But I will always be like, remember that first time, Todd? Well, we got lost on the trip. And so I think about this a lot, and just the idea that you can be vulnerable enough, like, yo, I actually don't know where we're going. Can I focus on driving while you focus on navigating? And together we will get where we're going. And for me, that's all of patient care. That's shared decision making, that's that whole narrative. I mean, I was like, all decisions are shared decisions because ultimately I'm not the one that goes home with you to take your medicines. And I know when I go to the doctor, she tells me lots of stuff, and some of those things I do, and some of those things I don't. And so if it's if that's true for me, and I'm a whole doctor, a doctor who teaches other doctors to be a doctor, there's no way I can expect that every patient goes, Oh, Marg said go to the left. Therefore, I'm gonna go to the left. But you get so much more credibility when I know what I know and I tell you I know this one for sure. And I'm not, I'm not even flinching because I'm telling you I know this one. When there's times when you don't know the one and you just tell them I don't, but we look it up together and now we know what we're gonna do. Or my favorite, which is a very true thing for me, I'm almost positive the answer is C, but I'm gonna double check it just to make sure because I love you and I want to make sure I'm giving you the right thing. And it's been a long time since I had to write for that drug, or it's been a long time since I had to diagnose that thing. So let's just look one more again just to make sure we're right before you leave. I've never had a patient throw me out of a room because they're like, you don't know what you're doing because you're using the computer. And I think that's a fear that clinicians have. It's that people think you're stupid or you're slow or you're whatever. And I'm like, I mean, I guess I could be stupid or slow, but what's dumber? Me writing the thing and not being sure and you getting hurt and being confirmed that I'm stupid, or like me just looking it up together, we getting it right, and you coming back to talk to me the next time when you have a problem because we could work on it together.
Chad Hermann:Margo, you are such an amazing guest that you have literally obliterated one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, which was about that very thing. You you made a similar comment in the webinar that you did for us at TMP, talking about if I don't know something, I'll tell you I don't, and then we'll look it up together. And I would have stood up and applauded then and now, but I would have been out of screen and it would have been very awkward. So just imagine me standing and applauding. Because, and again, I'll put my communication hat on. This is something, as you said, a lot of HCPs, particularly now at a time when Dr. Google is out there and there are a million sources of information. No one wants to admit that they don't know. I think in part because they're afraid you'll go look somewhere else and not listen to them. But what they forget is exactly what you remember and exactly what you just said, which is admitting what you don't know, and then saying what you will do about it, or working together to find out, or saying, I'm gonna find out, and I'll send you a patient portal message later with the answer, because obviously I have more patience to see. That's how you build trust, as opposed to, who are we kidding, bullshitting through something and then it not being true, or someone finding out later in my former life as a university professor. This was one of the hardest things that I had to do to get through to my students. Carnegie Mellon, all incredibly bright. And they were used to knowing almost everything, and they were used to being tested in a way where they had to show that they knew everything they had learned. And so I walk into a communication class and say, All right, when you don't know something, the first thing you do is admit it. And they were like, The horror. I can't do that. But but but I'll but I'll look, I'll but I no, you'll look like every other human being in the world, that there are things you don't know, and you build trust by admitting that and working together to find the answer. I am and hallelujah. I could, I could, I more people who are healthcare providers and more people who are just people need to understand and acknowledge that. Bravo.
SPEAKER_00:And for those of you, I will tell you is that like I often remind people that like you know, your doctor is a whole human being, and they they don't show up always exactly the way they mean or want to, because just like you, they have a lived experience, and that lived experience grows them and grooms them into who the person who's in front of you. And I'll be very honest with you. Like, I talk to you about these things now because this is who Margo was before she went to med school. Like, it's very straightforward. Like, I don't lie well, like I mean, I get caught a lot, so like there's no point in doing that. And so like I just move up past that really early on in childhood, but then you get to medical school and like people pick you for a reason. So they pick you because you're bossy, they pick you because you'll make a decision, they pick you because you're dominant, you're very, very confident, and you're very assured about what you're gonna do. They pick you because you don't crack under pressure and you don't ask a lot of questions. The the attendings like you because you just decide and you don't necessarily, you know, flinch or not know the answer. And so, you know, if you go through enough grooming of that window of training and people train you into being, you know, very uncomfortable with being unsure, then it's it's not a surprise to me that we get exactly what we get on the other side, which are a bunch of clinicians who are very, very um hard-lined about the things they do. They're very definitive about what they're telling you, because why would I be anything else? Like to be anything less than definitive on rounds is to get like hammered the whole rest of the time you're on that rotation. Like there would, there's no one who would choose that path. And so what I what I often need patients to understand is that the warm, fuzzy Margot that you want to see in front of you is not what you paid for or groom. Like that's not what you developed. That's not the training that you put me through. You put me through a gauntlet, and then you wanted me to be warm and fuzzy on the other side when the whole gauntlet was like, stop being warm and fuzzy, stay up all night and do all the stuff. And I'm like, you wanted me to be a robot at 3 a.m. Put in a, you know, put in the I and V with one eye open, be nice to the person. Like, you didn't ask me to be warm and fuzzy and thoughtful and like not even humble or like in in the in the humility space. Like you didn't ask for any of that for me. Like you asked for a whole different set of skills. So if you want me to grow these other things, then we have to roll back a little bit. And we might need to pick some different people to get into med school. You might have to pick some different skill sets that you want to train and develop through med school and residency, and you might want to reward people for some of those things because that's not even in practice what you reward. You reward the doctor who gets the answer right as fast as possible, gets you in and out of the office at the lowest price. Well, heck, that's not warm and fuzzy or listening to you either. And so we've got to be really thoughtful about giving our clinicians some space to grow this new skill set because that's not what patients have always asked for from us, and it's not how we've always been trained or asked to show up.
Chad Hermann:And patients need both, right? They need that absolute detail-oriented, no BS, get right to the point and solve the problem, because that's the most important thing, but they also need all the warm and fuzzy, right? You need you need both sides.
SPEAKER_00:So you gotta give me time to grow the other part too. And then you gotta be better at receiving the feedback and hearing that we're not good at it because I just think we're not good at it. And I don't know who he thinks is gonna teach people to be better at it because the generation before me was not it. So, I mean, like in real life, that is not how they showed up as your parents. That's not how they're gonna show up, like in as your faculty. So that's not what my generation learned to do. And so, I mean, I give I give our generation at the moment a lot of credit for at least trying, but they're not doing great. They're but they're trying. And I give the generation coming up behind me a lot of credit for being willing to be themselves anyway. And I'll tell you, like this young generation that's coming through, like the folks that are in med school today, they just don't see the world the same way. Their whole approach, how they show up. And I mean, we talk about it like digital natives, but I think it's even deeper than that. Like I think they relate to one another and to the world in a very different way. And the reason why I think you get the corporate, you know, the corporate sort of cleaned up polished version is because that's what that generation was taught is trustworthy. That's what that generation was taught makes sense. Putting on the white coat, clean and pressed, always, you know, a certain way, always with the stethoscope, always in a certain space. Whereas, you know, in other places, people might be looking for something very different. And you didn't get taught to be flexible, you got taught to be precise. And so people show up in this precise way, and that shows up in the corporate space because you're thinking the more polish my video, the more precise it is. You know, I care because I spent the money to get the right branding, to get the right lighting, to get the right whatever. I obviously invested in this because I care about you, and you don't realize that that's actually not the part that demonstrates that they're looking for, and particularly the younger you get, like that younger group is looking for authenticity. Yes, and that shows up a little bit different and requires a little bit of uh a different skill set. Like you just got to learn something different. So getting out of your own way, getting some younger people in your life makes a difference. And actually listening to them and hearing how their life experience may be a little bit different than yours makes a huge difference.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:Yeah. I for those of you listening on the podcast that can't see the video, I was I was doing my cereal bowl of sweet nuggets that that Margo was delivering fact after fact. Um, showing up the authenticity. Uh, she demonstrated perfect perfect act of listening, such as like, where do you hear that? Can you show me discussing it? Because then your patient knows that you want to know what's concerning them or helping them decide what they're deciding. And then you're helping dig into it with them, right? Look, this this podcast is is a is gonna be a journey. This whole where healthcare is now and whether where it needs to go with communication is gonna be a journey. Like to your point, there is a huge disconnect, and it's getting worse from almost every example that Chad and I can see. Um we we are missing the mark, particularly, I will tell you, across all of the different uh demographics, all the different boomers and Xs and millennials, and that we're in a different place. This this healthcare talking down to you and telling you this is how it should be, those that just that is a miss. That is a swing and a miss. And while um I will say training has not caught up to get us to where we need to be. This includes all healthcare providers. I will say docs, PAs, NPs, nurses, pharmacists, clinical social workers, all of us that have a place of trust when it comes to healthcare, to talking to patients, community health workers, you just name it. But are we being trained in a way that allows us to connect, to engage, to educate, maybe even to be entertaining sometimes? No, uh, we just need to do better.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, one of the things I get excited about, and it's why I like the way you guys approach this conversation, is that I really do just get back to this core idea of humanism. To show up and meet people where they are and have them meet you where you are, and have two humans just relating makes all the rest of the stuff feel much more different. Because the question becomes less about what does Margo the physician have to come in the room and do today? And more about Margo the physician has a certain set of skills that she knows, a certain set of knowledge that she's aware of. You, the patient, have a certain set of skills and a certain set of knowledge that you have. You have a problem, and you're coming to tell me about your problem. Hearing about your problem, hearing about your problem in the context of your life. And then if I just asked you what you need from me right now, we could get to a lot of stuff, right? And that's what you would want at home. So if you came home from work and your partner is looking stressed out, you'd be like, hey, you're looking stressed out. There's a problem, right? Because it's two human beings interacting with one another in a normal human being way. And if we could think about that patient visit, not so much as the stressful, really like just, I don't know, anxiety-inducing thing that I feel like it's become because I think that's why people's blood pressures are so high in the office. And like, there's just so many things we do in that whole experience, it stresses people out. And what I realized is that like it's literally it's like going to get your oil changed. Like you're just showing up and you got you got a car and you're just checking to see if the oil's good. And like, it's good. And then I'm gonna give you some advice, you're gonna take it, you're not, you may have some questions, and then if we do something or we don't, like, and it doesn't have to be this anxiety-provoking, really scary thing where this judge on high is gonna start making fun of you or mocking you or making you feel bad about yourself or making you question your own thoughts. It shouldn't be like that. It really should be you're going in for a consultation. I got questions about a thing that I don't really know fully. Like, I know I may know my body, but I don't know why it's doing the things it's doing. You know what car you bought, but you don't always know what that rattle is. And so I'm just asking you, person who built the car or person who knows what's inside the car, why is it rattling? And then we can decide together whether I want to fix that rattle or not. And like, I just think there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of space, and it just comes back to basic core humanism. We are all just humans, people flying around on this little rock. And I mean, if we could just get back to that space, both the patients treating the clinicians like humans, but then the clinicians treating the patients like humans, I think all of us would just be in a better spot.
Chad Hermann:The example of the stressed out partner is such a great one. Because the first thing I thought of is when that happens, you don't tell the partner, don't be stressed out, or you don't. Quote data at the partner to tell them why they shouldn't be stressed out. You say, Oh my gosh, why are you stressed out? Tell me about your day or tell me what's bothering you. And you listen. Yep. A, because to your point, that's just being a human and it's connecting and it's continuing to build that trust. And then it also allows you to know what they're stressed out about so that if there is some way you can help, whether you're the partner at dinner or you're the provider in the exam room, now you know what the problem is and you know how to attack it. Listening is a huge part of communication, period. And a huge, huge part of healthcare communication. One of Todd's absolute mentors, if not the mentor he had for his entire career, always told people new providers coming into our practice. The single best diagnostic tool that you have are your ears. Listen to your patients, and the vast majority of your work will already be done.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's and it's really cool if you're able to listen and be flexible. So that like people think that there's one message for everything because there's in theory one truth. And my my um my way of thinking about it is that there's never really one truth. There's at least four because people just receive things differently. Um, so there's there's you know the Margos of the world who honestly, I don't really want the touchy-filly thing, and I don't want to do the chit chat. Can you just tell me what my labs are so that I know the numbers and let's get in and get out? Like honestly, this could have all been an email. I don't even know why I'm here. And so, okay, if you if I that's where I met, then you know what, doc? Show up for me that way because you've asked me what I needed, I've told you you've gotten it. There's other people that are very much a touchy-filly person. When my dad goes to the doctor, I want to just jump off a cliff because he has had a chit chat with every person all the way in. They all know his name, they're so glad to see him. He's telling about where we went on vacation. I'm like, can we please just get to the part where you tell me what the lab is? And no, because that's him. And you know what? You got to meet him where he's at. Because the one time he had a doctor, he walked into he walked into a subspecialist office. The subspecialist was like, X, Y, Z. My dad was like, You don't care about me. You didn't even ask me how I was today. And I was like, That's fascinating. Because I was really happy about that. You're like, okay, that doesn't we're out of here. There's processed people who just want to know what's gonna happen next. They they can't even think about the number, they're just trying to think about what's happening next. So after you tell me this number, am I gonna die? Are we about to do something? Do I have to go do another test? So then you got to meet those people where they're at. And then there's those big idea people who are just so far beyond where you're at, because you're talking about the lab today and they're thinking about things years in the light years in the future. And like you, as you, as the person creating the message, walk into every message with four ways that you can talk about that. And if I'm prepared to talk about that in in all four ways, which isn't that hard to do, like we talk about like it's really hard to do, but it's not, right? So you have a certain set of numbers, you know that certain people want to know stuff, but there were certain patients that I know did not want any of this foolishness shenanigans. So I walk in the room and I'm like, yo, homie, what's up? And they're like, I'm here for XYZ. I'm like, do you need anything else today, or are we just doing XYZ? They're like, I just want XYZ. Here is XYZ. Now I'm gonna double check one more again because like sometimes you actually need to do something else. Do we need to do something else? And the answer is no, we're done. Because you know what? If you need something else for me, you let me know because I'm here for you. But if that's what you need, I'll give you what you need. But you gotta actually listen and you gotta ask the question if you're not sure to know where the person is. Because sometimes you think I want XYZ, but then if you ask me, I'm like, you know, normally I would just want XYZ, but I had a really rough week this week, and I would kind of like to tell somebody about it. That may be the little crack in the door that allows you to start having a really deep, really meaningful relationship with the other person. I mean, if you start off with the hard numbers and you know I'm not a hard number person, you lost me. If you don't care about social media, but social media is really important to me, you lost me. If you're only talking about your TikTok account and I could care less about TikTok and I think that's weird and doctors shouldn't be on it, you lost me. So you don't want to be all of any of these things. What you want to be is the person who you are, so authentically you, showing up as you, and then meeting the other person where they need you to be right now. So I can be Margo who likes to do social media and not talk to you about my social media life at all, because that's not what you came here for today. But if you're interested in talking about that today, I'm happy to talk to you about it. If you want to talk about the football game on Sunday because it hurts your feelings, let's talk about the football game on Sunday. Turns out I like football too. What do you want to talk about? And so you get that person to feel like there is real trust and connection because there actually is trust and connection. You're not trying to fake it till you make it. That's why the the weird, sometimes over-branded stuff comes across weird. It looks like you're trying to fake it till you make it. You don't have to fake it if you're just being you and they're being them and you have an authentic connection that's happening. I took the time to think about you because I know that what you needed from me was something that I'm not always good at. And I'm willing to try something new to be better for you because I care that much about you. And I just think there's lots and lots of doctors who actually feel that way. It doesn't come across in their visit, their visit's so jam-packed, and they're trying to do the things that they're trying to do faster on a budget, trying to get you all the things you need, trying to check off all the boxes. And and I just think, you know, some of that's not their fault, and some of it was what drives them feeling so burned out about their jobs because they don't want that either. Like they actually want to connect with you. They might need some skills. And I think we do have opportunities to teach them and to help them grow. I know our young generation likes to get new degrees, and I can't joke because y'all heard all the letters after my name. We get degrees, but the degrees are only so good. They teach you thoughts, they don't always teach you actions. And so sometimes you got to learn to practice.
Chad Hermann:I'm gonna wrap up everything that you just said in three words. They're the three words that I always told my students were the three most important words in communication, and that's know your audience. Good communication is a command of choices at every level, from diction-specific words to tone to what you tell to what you don't tell certain people, so that you pointed out the styles that people want to learn things. The more you know about your audience, the better able you are to make those choices. And as you point out, it's not hard. You can make them on the fly, but you make those choices and your communication becomes that much more effective and that much more successful. Speaking of audiences, Dr. Marg Savoy, thank you for bringing your wit, your wisdom, your insight, your experience, um, all those amazing nuggets that you had for us today for our audience. Um thank you for being here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thank you for letting me come. And if you're in the audience, like you should come back next week. There's going to be something awesome, and you want to hear that too. Um, it's just been really cool to get to have this conversation. I'm glad you're doing it. Um, I don't think it's something people talk about often enough. And so just the fact that it's out in space, looking forward to retweeting it when it comes out so that people can see it. And I will even go so far as to break out the Instagram and figure it out over there, too.
Dr. Todd Wolynn:I got you. I'll just say quickly to the audience out there, Margo, you you rock. Each week we will have we will have amazing communicators coming and talking about how they use communication. But healthcare has something to learn from every every episode. And as much as we keep hearing people say, What's the script? What's the right thing to say? I will just take it down to one word, which is humanism. Let's being human or being authentic is just a superpower and uh one we can work on getting better at.
Chad Hermann:As you both said, this is exactly what we want to do on this show, which is to talk about communication in ways that not a lot of people outside of communication do, and then figure out what we can learn from it and apply it to taking care of patients and communities literally across the globe. Dr. Marga Savoy, thank you for Dr. Todd Willin. I am Chad Herman. We are from the Trusted Messenger program, and this is the Trusted Messenger Podcast, where we are, as we just said, talking about these issues every week and doing everything we can to make healthcare communication better and more powerful. We'll see you next time.
