Who’s Really Leading Healthcare—Doctors, AI, or the Algorithm?

Stephanie Wierwille: [00:00:00] Welcome to the NoNormal Show brought to you by BPD. This is where we leave all things status quo, traditional, old school, and boring in the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, while delivering the future to healthcare’s leading brands.

I’m Stephanie Weirwill, EVP of engagement here at BPD, and I am joined by Desiree Duncan, VP of health equity and inclusion. Hi Des, so good to see you this morning.

Desiree Duncan: Hi, happy post Oscars day, how are

Stephanie Wierwille: Yay. Happy post Oscars day. Yes. It is sort of our, I think it’s our Superbowl. Is that right, Des? And Chris.

Chris, I think it’s your Superbowl too. Right? Hi. Good to be with you.

Chris: It’s not my Super Bowl, but it’s, it’s like definitely a divisional playoff round. Worthy.

Stephanie Wierwille: Des and I don’t know what that means.

Chris: Okay. fine. You know, just let it go. Just let it, just let it fly on by.

Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. So maybe, yeah, why don’t we start with, uh, with the Oscars last [00:01:00] night? How did you all feel about it?

Desiree Duncan: feel like the system is rigged.

Chris: Yes!

Desiree Duncan: I just know that A24, they go really hard on the lobbying, um, for their, their movies, which, and or I, I watched like half of it and then fell asleep. So it feels like I need to go watch it. Um, but justice to brutalist.

Chris: Mmm, really? Do we have to give justice to brutalists? I

Desiree Duncan: Give your hot take, Chris. All

Chris: not fall asleep halfway through, but I am halfway through and I’m not sure I’m going back. So, I mean, it, it didn’t really win it. The score was amazing. I will say the music is like instantly, you know, it’s like last of the Mohicans iconic, but Adrian Brody’s just. Brody, like he’s just this, this, he’s like, what’s his name? Jesse Eisenberg. Every movie Jesse Eisenberg is in is the exact same character. You [00:02:00] know, just awful anxiety and quirky. Like my wife just can’t even stand to watch him for two minutes and anything. and Adrian Brody’s a little bit like that too. So I, I was just like Timothee Chalamet. That’s where I thought was rigged. Des, I’m sure you thought it was rigged in other ways, but that’s how I thought was rigged. I loved Anora, by the way. Which made up for a lot. was an amazing movie.

Desiree Duncan: right. I’m watching it tonight cause it won all things. So I feel like I got to give it another shot.

Chris: You’ll like it.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, I didn’t really see that one coming. I thought that was a sort of, for me at least, a surprise. But I thought, yes, the whole Oscars got really long as it usually, as it always does. But the beginning was really fun. The first half was a really fun journey. Um, some great speeches, some great music, good hosting.

I had a good time until the last half.

Chris: Yes. I think Adrian Brody’s speech perfectly epitomized the problem with the movie. [00:03:00] Like, dude, be done. You could have cut an hour out of his speech and it would have been a better speech, just like the movie. Like, I don’t know, he just went on and on.

Desiree Duncan: will give you that on the speech for sure.

Chris: Yeah, it was no bueno.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah.

Chris: And we do have to talk about an ad that I saw early on and immediately texted both of you and you had not seen it but you’ve seen it subsequently. was like jaw drop. said, did I just hear that right? And I rewinded it. I’m like, I did hear that right. That is, so we’re talking about the Eli Lilly ad that tagline in it. it real medicine? I can’t remember what the

Stephanie Wierwille: Yes. Real medicine doesn’t need your faith.

Chris: medicine doesn’t need your faith. Now, when I hear that I hear that as like a diss track, like real medicine don’t need your faith. Like it’s a rip on faith. I don’t think that’s how they meant it, but that’s how I took it.

I think they meant it like, [00:04:00] um, real medicine doesn’t need faith to work. Like it’s, it’s amazing. Um, so that was, that was big. And then it was basically voiceovers of like your aunt in Missouri and you know, user five, three, two unicorn. Um, kind of, kind of tell them like, Hey, why don’t you go over there into that corner and let us people who understand healthcare and do what they’re doing, I’d love your take on it. We’re going to talk about it later, so we don’t have to go too far into it does fit our main topic, but that’s blown away,

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, it hit hard. Um, I thought it was very bold. I was In some ways shocked that Eli Lilly, that it got through all the approvals change of, of pharma. And it made me think, you know, pharma is really coming out strong recently. Um, I think it was, it was Pfizer with the great Superbowl spot and [00:05:00] I’m just like, wow, okay, pharma, like.

We recognize there’s a moment where we need to rebuild trust, so let’s be bold, but, but what I thought was interesting was, I think this was one of those spots that you either get it or you don’t, and it’s okay if you don’t, because it’s so, what’s the word? So sharply focused in on the specific issue. So I thought it was interesting, just in my household, it ran after yours ran, Chris, So I was like sitting on pins and needles watching it.

I had already seen it on YouTube and I turned to my partner afterwards. I’m like, Oh my gosh, like what did you think? And he’s like, I don’t get it. Who’s Illya Lilly? What, what was that? I don’t understand. And so I opened Twitter. Cause I’m like, is that just one person’s experience? And half of Twitter was like, what was that?

I’m so confused. Was that an anti vax ad?

Desiree Duncan: And

Stephanie Wierwille: the other half was like, Whoa, that was amazing. And I thought, okay, that’s.

Desiree Duncan: be able

Stephanie Wierwille: in my mind, that’s,

Desiree Duncan: And

Stephanie Wierwille: that almost makes it even a level better.

Desiree Duncan: what I’m doing. You

Stephanie Wierwille: When some people are like, huh?

Desiree Duncan: what

Stephanie Wierwille: some [00:06:00] people are like, whoa,

Desiree Duncan: to do. Yeah, it’s like something like that. Like, you’re going to view it based off of your own WEC world view. Right? And so if it’s going to be this, uh, essentially confirmation bias of whatever you kind of, wherever you kind of fall on the side of that, that’s the way you’re going to think of it. So you’re going to really look into and try to find the message that you’re looking for, uh, in something. But yeah, it was, it was very interesting to see how, uh, split audience was.

Chris: Yeah, and it does make me wonder though, uh, no, no shade at your partner, Stephanie, the people who didn’t get it. It reminds me of that famous meme from euphoria. Wait a second. Is this play about us? Like they don’t, they don’t

Stephanie Wierwille: go ahead.

Chris: it even had like, raspy voice, like, like, is that, are they trying to say RFK Jr.? And at the end, it was like, this is from your favorite podcast, and the [00:07:00] last voiceover says, trust me bro, I’m like, If that’s not Joe Rogan, it sounds very, very close to Joe Rogan, that’s got to be intentional. Um, so yeah, I think like, it may not be super effective, because the people that probably most need to hear that. didn’t see themselves in it, don’t understand it, or aren’t watching the Oscars in the first place because they think it’s, you know, it’s, it’s too far on the other end of them politically. And anyway,

Desiree Duncan: mean, for me, it’s, just so nicely summed up kind of the zeitgeist. And I especially love when in healthcare, we actually do that, rather than, oh, here’s your, you know, Spoonful of sugar and everything’s going to be great. It’s like, no, this is what’s actually going on in the world. Here’s what we are hearing. Here’s what we’re experiencing. And I’m going to put it up in front of your face. I love

Chris: Yeah.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, yeah, it was bold. Okay, well, we’ll keep this in mind. We’ll probably refer [00:08:00] back to this a few times because it’s kind of our cultural zeitgeist theme today. Um, but there’s a couple of headlines that we’ve noticed in the last few days that are really interesting. So the first is, um, Teladoc, um, and there’s been some news and controversy around Teladoc, which started by Blue Orca Capital, which announced a short position on Teladoc health financially and, and kind of accused it of misleading patients of, on its better health platform.

So better, better help. is owned by Teladoc, uh, it was an acquisition several years ago, but the key here is that according to this report, some patients thought they were getting therapy from humans, from licensed professionals, but actually, dun, dun, dun, they were getting responses by AI. Um, and so. So, there’s, there’s kind of a lot we can dig into here, but, you know, BetterHelp said, yeah, some therapists might be using AI tools, um, but [00:09:00] this is, this is a much bigger issue than that.

And so, ultimately, there was financial fallout, um, the stock dropped 30%, it was already really, really low. It was up 300. in at the height of the pandemic. Um, and now is already down to 9 a share, which this was not the first issue it had. Um, but then you add that to another, uh, news piece that came out five days later on the New York times, which was around, um, therapists and just this backlash that’s coming from mental health professionals, given the rise of AI chatbots.

So the American psychological Association a PA is calling for federal regulation and saying that there’s a lot of AI powered therapy chatbots that are out there, um, and not always disclosed as clearly as they need to be. So one example was character ai, which had some chatbots that were falsely claiming to be licensed therapists, and actually ended up in two really, really tragic stories of teenagers who sought help from AI therapists.

[00:10:00] Um, one died by suicide, another became violent toward family members. So. This is really becoming a challenging issue across lots of mental health, mental health platforms. Um, so I’m curious of you all’s reactions as you read these articles.

Desiree Duncan: Yeah, it’s definitely concerning, but also, I mean, with teens, especially like this is very, you know, very sad. but then also, you know, you’re at that age where you shouldn’t be making medical decisions for yourself, but then it’s, we have access, you know, right there at our fingertips. Um, Access to everything. But there’s one thing about, okay, I know that I’m actually talking to AI, which, you know, I guess character AI kind of goes back and forth there. They blend, saying that they’re actual therapists behind it. and then there’s another thing where you’re going to a Teladoc and you’re expecting to be actually talking to a therapist like you were set to and you realize that you’re not. But I always think about how [00:11:00] medicine is still so new that there are new remedies and Surgeries and different things that are coming out all the time and if we didn’t always try to push what is next what’s new We might still be getting lobotomies. We might be still using You know, leeches to, you know, change out her blood or I know that’s a major exaggeration. Um, but I’m always about like, you know, hey, what is the next thing? What’s the future? But like, what is also the regulation around it?

Chris: Uh, Dez, I think we still do use leeches. I think there are people that still use leeches. I don’t think it’s the, you’re not going to find it at your local health system, but I do think it’s, it’s available out there. If you, if you are bummed that we’re not using leeches, if that was the point of your message, you can still go find it.

Well, that’s fair. That’s fair.

Desiree Duncan: than it is today. You go and find the leeches today before it felt more prescribed.

Chris: So my [00:12:00] wife is a clinical therapist, um, and so she has very strong feelings about A. I. understandably, um, but I think a couple of things are, are fair. That’s it’s fair to worry about it today. But first of all, um, therapists as a sector and mental health as a sector thought virtual care could not work. In therapy. now where are we? Right? So like, to your point, as we’ve advanced, even from five years ago, uh, in that way, I think, you know, we also talk all the time, Stephanie, when you and I are out there processizing, if I pronounce that right. on AI that like today is today and it is the worst version of AI you’re ever going to get. So I am completely certain that AI will will get to a place where AI can figure out these challenges. Uh, you know, I think it is fair that it lacks ethical responsibility. Uh, it tends to just reflect back to people what it’s hearing rather [00:13:00] than You know, people’s thoughts, that’s going to change. It’s going to learn how to do that right. Or particular models will learn how to do that right. then, you know, again, understanding that that the APA is suing and calling for federal relation and they’re all up in arms. But we would expect that from a trade group who’s protecting its people, just like in Hollywood, the screen writers.

or whatever they’re called. Screen Actors Guild. Screen Actors Guild is up in arms about AI because they’re worried about AI taking over that. It’s the, the, the harm that it has caused. I don’t know this to be true, but I bet it is. It reminds me when people freak out about driverless, driverless cars killing somebody. And it’s like, uh, you know how many people each day die from Human driven cars? Like, are we comparing apples to apples? Are we saying that two teens who died from using AI driven [00:14:00] therapy Like nobody’s died from bad therapy advice. I, I, you know, committed suicide. Of course, nobody wants that. Uh, but until we see, like, well wait a second, like, this is just part of what happens in therapy now.

I know one of those situations was pretty bad. Like the advice given by AI was bad. So I doubt there’s therapists out there, not many of them that are telling people, yeah, you should, you should follow through on those thoughts. Like, that’s that’s. Probably not happening though. I wouldn’t guarantee that it hasn’t. Uh, but anyway, those are the things to keep in mind. Um, as we think about this, that maybe today it’s, it still needs to be regulated and thought of in a, in a certain way, but that’s going to change.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to get to the right place, which we don’t know what that looks like yet, but I actually might take a little bit more of a risk averse approach on this. Maybe surprising coming from me who believes AI is, you know, the best thing since. Slice bread.

Um, but, you know, [00:15:00] on one hand, it can be really useful for mental health purposes, right? It can, it can allow you to get, get what you might, or a portion of what you might get from a mental health professional in the middle of the night, on the weekend, when you can’t reach them. Um, and, and I think in that sense, it’s, it’s really helpful.

The challenge is that Where there’s, there’s a lot of issues, but AI sort of leads with empathy, which is one thing that makes it great. And actually the last, uh, latest model from open AI 4. 5 has the highest empathy ever, which to me is a little shocking because I’ve already are always found that empathy.

It’s always going to respond to you with this yes man approach. First, it’s going to be like, I hear you, I see you, here’s what you’re going through. It creates trust. No matter what topic you’re asking about, it starts with a, wow, that must be really hard for you, which humans don’t usually start with. We as humans, unfortunately, even though we know better.

We usually start with, Oh, here’s some advice, right? And what awesome therapists do is they first [00:16:00] take time to see you and hear you and reflect your feelings.

Chris: Right.

Stephanie Wierwille: and so it does that very well. The thing that it does though, that a human therapist doesn’t is it is a yes man all the time. So the New York Times article defined this, they called it sycophancy, which I had to go look up that word, but it’s basically behavior that sycophancy, it’s behavior that gets someone to gain, to gain the advantage, right?

So it’s a yes, man. It’s reinforcing the user’s belief. And I find that all the time where I’m talking to my robot friend and it’s like, wow, what a great idea. Here’s some things to consider. So I think that’s kind of what we see a little bit in this New York times article and some of the examples from character AI.

So. So, in a mental health situation, those have to be sorted out, um, in order to get to that big beautiful world you’re talking about, Chris.

Desiree Duncan: And that some platforms are better than others. I mean, Character AI is a personalized AI. It’s not necessarily based off of mental health. [00:17:00] But then you have something like Wobot Health. I was actually listening to a TED Health podcast and the founder of it, Dr. Allison Darcy, she is a clinical research psychologist who started this and she kind of touched on exactly what you had said, Stephanie, about the, uh, Too often people don’t feel supported because they aren’t, and that this is a, uh, set up around more, mostly focused around that empathy and understanding.

And that we as humans, we can be pretty terrible about actually listening to each other. I don’t know how, I can’t, I can count on my hand every single day how often someone has not remotely even listened to me. Um, but then you have some of these platforms that are going to continue to get better that actually do, and that’s going to create more of that progress we seek that.

Humans, we kind of fall short at times.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Chris: We can leave that. We can, we can move on. I just, I laughed at syncopacy because I think

Stephanie Wierwille: I know.

Chris: a, it’s a, we should, let’s just leave it on the table. We can leave it alone, but it feels like it’s a bit of [00:18:00] a, you talk about culture all the time. It’s a bit of the, it’s probably the top five cultural. phrase right now as we speak.

And we’ll

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah.

Chris: going to drop it there and we’ll just move on.

Stephanie Wierwille: Well, what I just learned is, uh, I need to go study my vocab. That’s what I learned from your laugh, Chris.

Chris: You’ve probably heard of a syncophant.

Stephanie Wierwille: I’m sure I have. I,

Chris: course you have.

Stephanie Wierwille: I’m going to get off this call and go create a curriculum for myself now in vocab.

Chris: I

Stephanie Wierwille: Because,

Chris: You want to hear my curriculum?

Stephanie Wierwille: yes.

Chris: I have to find it. Wait, go ahead, keep going. But I’m going to tell you, I’ve started my own curriculum. And it is of terminology, my own dictionary, that I want to start using more. have three words on it. They are, um, not like us, squabble up, and gander sauce. I won’t add sycophant to that. Um, and maybe we can get into those later. We can get into those, maybe, our watch words for the opening of future podcasts. We have too much to talk about in the time

Stephanie Wierwille: [00:19:00] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I think we, we, we set this up a little bit with the Eli Lilly ad, but we, and we talked about it a little bit in our last episode, actually, we’ve been talking for a while about how the rise of health secs is the theme of the year. Um, and so just. I think folks listening, many have heard us talk about JoePublic2030, we’ve given all five trends, um, but, you know, Chris, actually, do you want to give a quick setup since you are JoePublic2030 in the human form before we get into this?

Chris: both of you were part of Joe Public 2030, so. There were many people involved in developing that, but I can give the quick summary. Essentially, like everything else in the world, uh, we’ve politicized health care. It’s always been politicized, by the way, but the rise of the health secs was a prediction that over the course of this decade, uh, Healthcare would become as politicized as the car you drive, the music you listen to, [00:20:00] uh, you know, the movies you watch, all of those things. And not only that, but it’ll, it’ll, it’ll get to the point that we would see, and we have seen already, Healthcare organizations crop up that are completely oriented around a political worldview. Um, so where we have seen that in certain places around the idea of medical freedom. So it’s all about your healthcare, how you think about healthcare, what you do in healthcare, is, is, has been shifted to your political worldview. Uh, that’s really what it’s talking about. So, um, Yeah, the Eli Lilly thing is an example of kind of going after that very dynamic for those people that believe they know better than their doctors when it comes to this, that, or the other, because they listened to Joe Rogan’s podcast, or they something in their aunt’s Facebook feed, and now they, [00:21:00] they know better on what to do with X, Y, or Z in their healthcare because of their political view.

So that’s what it is.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yes, and we have a predict o meter, um, because this, this predict o meter is on BPD’s website, which we’ll link in our show notes, but it sort of shows how we’re doing across our five trends from JoePublic2030, and these, these five predictions, uh, were developed, uh, a couple years ago, and so we revisit them frequently, and for better or for worse, I would say for worse, the rise of the health secs is a nailed it, green, um, is tracking Faster and faster, higher and higher on the predictometer.

So we saw a couple pieces this past week that really lean into the rise of the health secs. And one of them is from the wall street journal, a piece about why we don’t trust doctors like we used to. So this is something that we’ve been talking about for months and months, maybe even years, but we’ve been seeing the change in the shift in trust, lower and lower trust on institutions and government.

And of course the media, none of that’s new news, [00:22:00] but I think, uh, Reflecting, we’ve sort of been saying, Oh, but people still trust their doctors and their nurses. And now we look at the data and it’s like, Oh, not anymore. So according to the journal, only 53 percent of Americans rate doctors highly for honesty and ethics, which is a huge drop from 67 percent in 2021, the biggest decline among all professions surveyed.

So no longer can we say, Oh, but they trust their doctors and nurses, so let’s use them as the voice. Um, And rely on that. And so there’s a lot that’s driving this erosion of trust. But I just like how this piece starts out. It started out with this personal story of a pediatrician that said some of her relatives actually no longer go to her for medical advice.

Why? Because her kids, her daughters, they’re turning to TikTok to Google instead of their mom, who is a pediatrician. Um, and, and it just, I think the first sentence really after the story sums up the whole piece, which is that people are increasingly wary. Of a system that is supposed to make them feel better, but instead leaves them feeling stressed and frustrated.

So I won’t share my [00:23:00] 95 personal stories, but they all came to mind as I was reading this article of all the times when I’ve been stressed and frustrated by the system. None of that’s really the doctor’s fault in many cases, but they’re the voice, they’re the messenger, you know? And so if you have scheduling issues or you’re referred to specialists or you can’t get the test you need, whatever it is, where does the blame land?

Um, So I get a little, my blood starts to boil on this one, um, Chris and Des, how did, what was your response when reading this?

Chris: Des, I want, I want to hear from you, but I want to clarify to you, like, I think this article and much of what we’ll talk about isn’t about political viewpoint at all. I think that to your point, Stephanie, it, it definitely influences the drop in trust and we’ll, we will talk about it, but the healthcare system alone is responsible for much of it.

So I’ll just, I’ll just leave that there. Des, where are you at with this?

Desiree Duncan: Hard to agree from personal experiences [00:24:00] as well as, you know, countless interviews with consumers, health care consumers who say the same exact thing. I mean, every so often then they’ll of course find that unicorn doctor that actually feels like they are in it with them, but it’s just countless, uh, stories of feeling completely dismissed or given a. Uh, been told something to do, but like not even really how to do it or how it’s going to fit into her lifestyle judgment, uh, walking in like, Oh, well, if you just lose some weight, this will solve all of your problems. It’s like, Oh, okay. Yeah. So it’s all everyone’s problem. But how am I going to do that? How do I work that in? How do I actually develop a meal plan based off of this? Uh, and I know for me, I look for outside sources just because I know of more, um, I guess you’d call it homeopathic or, uh, alternative. I don’t think of it as alternative, but as someone that has navigated digestion issues since my early twenties and was just [00:25:00] prescribed a pill to take every single day until I guess I die or need to get some kind of colon, uh, colonoscopy or transplant, or not colonoscopy, but, um, But essentially what I have found more has worked is you know figuring out how to get fermented foods into my system for Augmenting gut biome which connects also to clarity of mind and all this stuff, but you don’t hear about that the doctor’s office and I’ll say one last thing on this I actually went to what actually helped me was I went to a holistic chiropractor who aligned me Worked with me and I six, uh, three months later, I woke up a brand new person and I would not have gotten that from a medical doctor.

I think there needs to be more of a mix, but I get the sense of, you know, you’re just being dismissed and then prescribed a pill that you’re supposed to take until the rest of your life. And that’s just not helping anyone. Some people, it’s not helping everyone. I mean,

Stephanie Wierwille: Des, Des, your blood boils too a little [00:26:00] bit it sounds like for, for different, maybe different reasons.

Chris: Yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure for different reasons. Yeah, it just, seems like a, um, what would be interesting to see is I bet doctors and nurses are still at the top of the list and trust, which just shows you how everything is like crumbled to the ground. Um, And again, for a different podcast, but there is some nefarious forces that benefit from our institutions being knocked to the ground and healthcare certainly fits in there. So this isn’t going to get better, by the way, if you’re a physician and a nurse, I think what sucks is. It’s the physicians and the nurses everybody everybody’s got flaws. There’s always bad apples blah blah blah But they and the rest of the health care professionals are actually trying to do the right thing they are actually mostly value in a health care system that is full of [00:27:00] players that delivering value, they’re just sucking money from the system. Uh, and so it’s, it’s really a shame that it’s come down to that group because you could always, to your point, Stephanie, point to back in COVID, listen, there’s all kinds of information from everywhere. People will listen to you as a doctor and a nurse. So leverage that. to make sure people understand what’s right.

Well, that was really the beginning of the end of all of that. Because again, politically, people started saying, well, I don’t, I don’t think I need this or that. And my doctor says I do. So now my doctor’s wrong. I don’t trust my doctor. Rather than wherever they’re getting that information. So, um, it just, it’s a bad situation. And I think it is going to have. Implications for health in this country that are deep for individuals that don’t trust and I understand why many don’t like they have They have tons of [00:28:00] reasons to not trust that will actually in many cases lead to worse health and it will affect others Because again as we’ve talked about before if I don’t believe I need to vaccinate my kid that doesn’t just put my kid at risk You know, healthcare, like many things in this country, it is a bit of a, um, Oh, what’s it called?

What’s the, what’s the dilemma of the, of the town square, the common square. Have you guys

Stephanie Wierwille: Oh yeah, yeah, something of the commons.

Chris: in the common square. And if everybody just goes in and takes their own cow, like I need to eat. So I’m gonna take my own cow. There’s no cows left.

Everybody dies of starvation six months later, you’ve got to figure out how to. work as a group and healthcare is a thousand percent that, uh, if you want to lift everybody up and this is just gonna make it worse.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, yeah, and I, you know, you said, Chris, like this specific article, this specific piece is not focused on the [00:29:00] politics, but it’s very related to it, right? Because the fact that we have the reduction of trust in institutions and now reduction of trust in doctors and nurses and science, what steps in and fills its place is where you end up with the rise in the health secs, which, you know, going back to the Eli Lilly ad.

You know, is it faith? Maybe what steps in? Is it, is it experience with, you know, alternative medicine? Maybe is it, is it recommendations from friends? Is it politics? Like all of these things, it’s almost hard to pull them apart in my mind because there’s all of these cultural factors that are happening at once.

And yes, it was exacerbated by COVID, which. You know, there’s a lot of conversation right now about frustration of what happened there with conflicting guidance.

Desiree Duncan: can

Stephanie Wierwille: but the one side of me says, that’s science guys. Science is like, Hey, here’s what we know today. It changes next week because we learned more.

It changes the next week because we learned more.

Desiree Duncan: a,

Stephanie Wierwille: that, that’s [00:30:00] science. It is a entire field rooted and grounded in experimentation, tests, trials, learn, grow. But the problem is what happens when you get so frustrated with that because you don’t have that, you know, maybe mindset. And so now we’re pulling back.

Years and decades of learnings because we’re questioning all of it. So that, to me, is where it plays into the rise of the health secs, um, though this specific focus on people’s frustration with doctors and the medical system is not it, but it all confluences together.

Desiree Duncan: Yes, agree. And Chris, you touched on something about the collectivism and that that isn’t the culture of the U. S. It’s individuality, and that essentially the youth of our nation. Is showing at this point where before we were a bit more obedient, but now we are rebelling. We’re doing our own thing and here’s how it’s showing up in healthcare.

Chris: Yeah, totally. And we, the, um, already, [00:31:00] we already had fun with the Oscars and we love to talk about pop culture. So you are, if you’re not watching the pit, one, you got to watch the pick is this amazing television to the pit shows you. What real health care professionals actually do every day. it shows you the crap they have to deal with every day. Uh, which leads to, without spoiling anything, the latest episode, which involves health care violence. So we are seeing increased incidents of people Acting violently in a health care setting towards doctors, nurses, or whoever in large part because of lack of trust. Uh, it also has a phenomenal, uh, tying it all back to the Eli Lilly thing.

Another kind of pushback where there’s, again, I’m going to spoil, I don’t care. Spoiler alert, episode 9. Uh, a fight in the waiting room between two women around masks. [00:32:00] you can imagine the two women and their viewpoints. Uh, and the one woman who has the anti mask viewpoint punches the other woman and gets a tooth lodged in her hand. And when that happens, there’s a real chance of serious infection. So she has to have surgery on her hand. the doctor in the ER says, Oh, uh, by the way, should I tell the surgeons not to wear masks? she’s like, what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, us in the medical profession believe mass are really important in, in lowering the chance of infection and disease. Uh, but you know, if you don’t believe in mass, I can just tell the surgeons not to wear them. And the look on the woman’s face is like, I’ll take the masks. And it’s, it, it’s again, like it is that it is the show saying, Hey, medical science tells us something and you don’t have to believe it. You know, you kind of are having your cake and eat it too, saying, I don’t believe it out in the waiting room, but when it comes to me, I’m going to believe it.

So [00:33:00] it’s, you got to watch it. It’s brilliant. If only for the medical part of it, which I guess doctors and nurses say it’s the most realistic thing they’ve ever seen in terms of depicting an actual emergency room scenario. So I’ll put that plug in there.

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, the stress, the stress is very real, I think, among doctors right now. And so, you know, interesting that that depicts that. And I, I’m only on episode one, Chris, I haven’t gotten very far, but you know, even in episode one, you kind of pick up. The major, major stress and mental health challenges that come from living in that world every single day.

And to your point about workplace violence, but also just the PTSD of it all, and then you’re not trusted. And so, burnout is like this bad word right now. Everyone’s sick of talking about burnout. We’re sick of talking about nurse burnout and physician burnout because it’s just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know.

But what I’ve seen interesting in my LinkedIn feeds, there’s a, uh, a wide variety of sort of like physician influencers I follow, and more and more they’re sharing their frustration, they’re linking out to Reddit threads [00:34:00] and subreddits, and what I think is a little bit new is, is these, these physicians are speaking out more than ever before, and they’re just, they’re, they’re peeling back all the layers of it, and they’re willing to talk about the whys You know, and some of it, they’re like, is on us.

They’re like, some of it is on us. Yes. And some of it’s on the system and some of it’s on politics and some of it’s on social media and some of it’s on AI. Um, and so one, one that I like to follow, Dr. Graham Walker, uh, he actually, uh, penned this piece that I think came before the Wall Street Journal article.

And he sort of is like. Hey, they, they copied me, um, but he digs into all of these issues and, and he kind of has a call to action for how to rebuild trust and how to gain people’s trust, which, hey, it goes back to some of what AI does, which is empathy, leading with empathy and being transparent and listening.

Um, so I don’t think there’s any silver. bullet here. And I don’t know if you all have any, like, what are your, do you have any recommendations? Like, as we continue to walk this wild world of, you know, we’re, [00:35:00] we’re, we are highlighting healthcare and we’re trying to encourage the, the buildup of trust of healthcare, health systems, physicians.

Um, but it is a complicated onion. So I think before we wrap, I want to see if either one of you have, you know, How are you thinking about what’s next here?

Desiree Duncan: don’t know that I have any thoughts on what’s next other than just, yeah, do, do better treat people as humans and with empathy.

Chris: Yes, treat people as humans with empathy, that does not necessarily all equate to just do what they’re wanting. Um, and I think that’s the trick of it, right? Like if you’re sticking to medical science, as you know, it to Stephanie’s point, things change all the time in science and they change all the time in healthcare. Uh, but if the current. know, best practice is to do A your patient says, but I heard from this, you know, podcast that I should do [00:36:00] B. If B is wackadoo, you stick with A. I mean, there are liabilities. There are all kinds of reasons for that, but you can do that empathetically. Uh, but this is life and death.

You know, this isn’t just like people’s opinions. This is what we, what, how we treat people in healthcare impacts actual lives. every single time. So you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta walk that fine line and you’ve maybe gotta grow a thicker skin and be ready for all of the stuff that’s coming cause that’s only going to get It’s gonna get worse before it gets better, doubt about it. If it gets better, but that’s, let’s just hope it gets better. We can just

Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, I’m on the it’s gonna get worse train too, unfortunately. It’s just all the signs are pointing that out direction, the voices are getting louder and louder and louder, and it’s getting more and more complex. And so I guess I would say. As much as we can have a voice, let’s have a voice like what Dr.

Graham Walker is [00:37:00] sharing, I think is really, really helpful stuff. I think others are, you know, jumping into the news and, and talking to news outlets, physicians are at this time and saying, Hey, here’s what we actually know. I was thinking about nutrition over the weekend and how that is perhaps the most complicated field.

Why? Why? Because there’s a, there’s something to be gained from coming out with a new theory. There’s money to be gained by saying, Oh, the keto diet is the new thing. Oh, this diet is the new thing. And here’s my meal plan and I’m going to charge you for it. And on the other hand, the science says it’s actually really simple in many ways.

So, I was thinking, you know, how can, how can we simplify Have a voice, show up where we can, and keep fighting the good fight.

Chris: No problem.

Stephanie Wierwille: yeah, no problem, easy peasy. It’s all gonna be fine. Um, alright, well, I guess we’ll wrap here. I’m on this maybe kind of depressing note, um, of the rise of the health secs, but plug for the [00:38:00] predictometer, um, which we will link in the show notes so you can go check out the rise of the health secs and see how it continues to change over time, hopefully for the better.

But for everyone listening, we’re halfway through what?

Chris: No, we’re halfway through. We’re halfway through the predictions. The predictions were for through 2030. It’s 2025. So, rise of the health secs already checked, count it. It’s done,

Stephanie Wierwille: um, for everyone listening, be sure to subscribe to the newsletter where we cover all these rewind

Chris: Still time.

Stephanie Wierwille: That’s right. There’s still time. There’s still time, right? To go a different way.

um, for everyone listening, be sure to subscribe to the newsletter where we cover all these things and give a quick rewind on the No Normal Rewind, which goes even deeper to all the discussions that you hear on this show. And we would love to hear from you if there’s anything you want to cover, if you have a thought, if you disagree with us.

Tell us all about it at nonormalatbpdhealthcare. com and make sure you share the show with friends and colleagues. And until next [00:39:00] time, don’t be satisfied with the no, with the normal, push the no normal and we’ll talk to you next week.