PESummit Day 2 – Being Vulnerable Opens Us to Deeper Connections

Whether it was planned or by cosmic happenstance, Day 2 of the 2018 Patient Experience: Empathy and Innovation Summit (#PESummit) reinforced a theme from the prior day:

  • Making yourself vulnerable opens us up to deeper connections with others

On Day 1, Cleveland Clinic President and CEO, Tomislav Mihaljevic MD @TomMihaljevicMD shared a story of a patient that died in the OR (see my Day 1 summary for details). It was a very personal story. By sharing it Mihaljevic made himself vulnerable and instantly forged a connection with the thousands of attendees in the hall.

Most people find it difficult to share stories that make them uncomfortable – especially ones where we are at the center of the story. We don’t like to talk about our fears, our failures or our losses because we are afraid of what other people may think (which is another way of saying that we fear that we will be rejected). Yet paradoxically by making ourselves vulnerable in this way, we actually make it easier for others to connect with us. Adrienne Boissy @boissyad, Chief Experience Officer at Cleveland Clinic stated exactly that after Mihalijevic shared his story.

Day 2’s opening keynote speaker, Kelsey Crowe PhD, founder of Help Each Other Out, articulated how the fear of being a burden or being seen as needy, holds patients back from asking for help. In other words, its hard for patients to admit to being vulnerable:

Crowe went on to share how small gestures of kindness and empathy, made at the times of vulnerability made a tremendous difference in their care. A unique “gesture wall” that she deployed at a healthcare facility allowed patients to capture these wonderful moments for staff to read.

This theme of being open, honest and vulnerable as a way to connect with people was reinforced by the next keynote speaker, Michael Hebb, founder of Deathoverdinner.org, and Drugsoverdinner.org.

In fact, Hebb’s entire keynote featured story after story about how sharing the fears about the end-of-life opened up the conversation, providing families and loved ones with the chance to better connect.

Vulnerability was also featured by Day 2’s closing keynotes: Brennan Spiegel MD @BrennanSpiegel, Director of Health Services Research, Cedars-Sinai Health System and Zubin Damania MD @ZDoggMD

At the end of Brennan’s fascinating presentation on the clinical application for an efficacy of Virtual Reality, he shared a failure that counterbalanced the exceedingly positive stories that he had showed the audience. Like Mihaljevic, talking about a failure helped the audience connect with Brennan and the patient that had suffered a panic attack as a result of the VR simulation.

Vulnerability was also featured by Day 2’s closing keynotes: Brennan Spiegel MD @BrennanSpiegel, Director of Health Services Research, Cedars-Sinai Health System and Zubin Damania MD @ZDoggMD

At the end of Brennan’s fascinating presentation on the clinical application for an efficacy of Virtual Reality, he shared a failure that counterbalanced the exceedingly positive stories that he had showed the audience. Like Mihaljevic, talking about a failure helped the audience connect with Brennan and the patient that had suffered a panic attack as a result of the VR simulation.

As is normal for Damania (aka ZDoggMD), his session was energizing and entertaining. However, in the midst of live renditions of his favorite medical rap parodies and fun stories of his parents, Damania shared the story of Turntable Health – the novel practice he was forced to close in early 2017. “No one was more pissed off about it than me.” said Damania.

By sharing this painful part of his journey, Damania made himself vulnerable and judging by the body language, many in the audience could relate to his do-everything-right-yet-still-not-work-out feelings. That story gave context to Damania’s impassioned plee to join him in ushering in Health 3.0 – a vision for care partly based on the best parts of his Turntable Health experience.

Day 2 of PESummit even better than Day 1. I can’t wait for the final day tomorrow. Follow the conference hashtag – #PESummit for real-time updates!

About the author

Colin Hung

Colin Hung is the co-founder of the #hcldr (healthcare leadership) tweetchat one of the most popular and active healthcare social media communities on Twitter. Colin speaks, tweets and blogs regularly about healthcare, technology, marketing and leadership. He is currently an independent marketing consultant working with leading healthIT companies. Colin is a member of #TheWalkingGallery. His Twitter handle is: @Colin_Hung.

   

Categories