Part 1 - Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors & Patients w/ Robert Pearl, MD. Tune into Swift Healthcare Podcast to hear Robert Pearl, MD discuss his new book which has already become a #1 New Release in multiple Amazon categories and is soon to be a NY Times Bestseller!

Ranked a Top 60 Healthcare Leadership podcast by Feedspot.

In his new book, Dr. Pearl shines a light on the unseen and often toxic culture of medicine. Today’s physicians have a surprising disdain for technology, an unhealthy obsession with status, and an increasingly complicated relationship with their patients. All of this can be traced back to their earliest experiences in medical school, where doctors inherit a set of norms, beliefs, and expectations that shape almost every decision they make, with profound consequences for the rest of us.

Robert Pearl, MD Links:

https://robertpearlmd.com

https://robertpearlmd.com/books/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-pearl-m-d-32427b98/

Music Credit: Jason Shaw from www.Audionautix.com

THE IMPERFECT SHOW NOTES

To help make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who like to read rather than listen to podcasts, we’d love to offer polished show notes. However, Swift Healthcare is in its first year. 

What we can offer currently are these imperfect show notes. The transcription is far from perfect. But hopefully it’s close enough - even with the errors - to give those who aren’t able or inclined to audio interviews a way to participate.  Please enjoy!

Transcript:

[00:00:00 ] Patrick Swift, PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:00:00 ] Welcome  folks to another episode  of the Swift healthcare video podcast, I am delighted that you're here welcome to our listeners in Latin America and Eastern Europe and the United States and all over the planet because I have an amazing guest.

[00:00:12 ] I'm so excited about Dr. Robert Pearl, Dr. Pearl. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:17 ] Robert Pearl, MD: [00:00:17 ] Thank you, Patrick. It's an honor. And a privilege to be here.

[00:00:20 ] Patrick Swift, PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:00:20 ] Well, delighted you're here. And folks, I want you to take a seat, get comfortable. You're about to experience a masterclass. And, um, I could not ask for, uh, a better guest for a show. That's looking at the intersection of healthcare and leadership. Pop the hood. Look at the engine of healthcare. Talk about it from a, from a, uh, heart and head, an understanding perspective and someone who can see the big picture.

[00:00:47 ] Uh, Dr. Robert Pearl, I have this bio, I've got to read you a portion of his bio. Dr. Robert Pearl is the listen to all this, the former CEO of the Permanente medical group, the nation's [00:01:00 ] largest medical group former president of The Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group in these roles, he led 10,000 physicians, 38,000 staff, healthcare professionals, responsible, nationally recognized medical care and 5 million Kaiser Permanente members.

[00:01:15 ] That's one. Two: one  of the nation's Modern Healthcare's 50  most influential. Physician leaders. I know Robert is going to try to stop me, but hang on there. I want to share this with listeners. He's the author of mistreated, why we think we're getting good healthcare and why we're usually wrong. Can you not resonate with that?

[00:01:33 ] Uh, his next book coming out, which I'm so excited about uncaring, how the culture of medicine kills doctors and patients, ah, such a great title. He hosts multiple podcasts, fixing healthcare, coronavirus the truth. We got to hear the truth about coronavirus God, uh, publishes a newsletter with over 12,000 subscribers.

[00:01:52 ] If you're not subscribed, please subscribe a monthly musings on health American healthcare. He's a regular contributor to Forbes. Um, [00:02:00 ] the man is a dynamo, um, leading with heart and, uh, let's start with the book uncaring, how the culture of medicine is killing doctors and patients at the top of the show.

[00:02:12 ] We're going to end on this, but at the top of the show, uh, Robert, please just share with folks, um, the book and how folks can get it and who it's helping. This is listen to this. Who's helping.

[00:02:24 ] Robert Pearl, MD: [00:02:24 ] Well, thank you so much, Patrick. When I wrote the book mistreated, I was talking about the systemic problems, how healthcare is paid for how healthcare is organized, how it's technologically or not technologically supported. And as I travel around the country and I talked about this in patients, it was clear to me there was something else missing.

[00:02:49 ] And I researched trying to figure out what it was. And I wrote the book about what I believe it to be, which is the physician culture. I don't know. I call it the physician culture is really the [00:03:00 ] culture of all people provide care. I just know the physician side, having been the head of the medical group far better than I know all the other pieces, but it equally applies.

[00:03:10 ] And for those of your viewers who do pre-order the book. They go to my website, Robert Pearl md.com, where they can find access to a lot of providers, all the profits go to doctors without borders, if five Oh one C3 charity providing healthcare around the globe as did the profits from Mistreated  and anyone who pre-orders, the book will get some freebies, including a signed book plates, including the discussion guide, a bibliography of other books on the same topic and a chance to pre-read the introductory chapter.

[00:03:48 ] And it will be delivered to your home on May 18th, the official pub date.

[00:03:53 ] Patrick Swift, PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:03:53 ] love it. I love it. I love it. And again, folks that the proceeds of this book are going for doctors without borders, Medecines [00:04:00 ] Sans Frontieres. Uh, this is for good. Um, and it encapsulates some wisdom and love and compassion and courage. and joy  that Dr. Pearl was compelled in that composing that book. So this up number one.

[00:04:13 ] Thank you. And two. This episode, we're going to do the show in two segments. The book is titled uncaring, how the culture of medicine is killing doctors and patients and being providers. We were talking who who's, who we going to focus on first. And we agreed the patients were going to start with an episode on the patients.

[00:04:29 ] And so we're going to touch on, um, the elements of the book, but from the patient perspective. And, um, part of this is a conversation about culture. And I want to start with your why you became a physician, because I know this influences your perspective on culture and, and your parent experience and, and how all this comes together.

[00:04:51 ] So, so where does this passion come from? Dr. Pearl?

[00:04:55 ] Robert Pearl, MD: [00:04:55 ] So as a naive 17 year old, I headed off to college [00:05:00 ] and I wanted to be a university professor. I wanted to teach philosophy and my hero who ultimately became the chairman of Reed college. He was brilliant. Didn't get tenure because of his political views. And I decided I wanted to go with this, something that would have no politics and that would Medicine. We're talking about life and death, Patrick, how could you be?

[00:05:30 ] How could there be politics? So I went to medical school and then I went on to Stanford to become a heart surgeon. And guess what? I found the best physicians didn't always get the referrals. Yeah, it was politics who you knew the club you belong to. And I, I almost dropped out of medicine,

[00:05:53 ] Patrick Swift, PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:05:53 ] Yeah. Wow. Wow.

[00:05:55 ] Robert Pearl, MD: [00:05:55 ] and then I have a chance to go to Mexico on a volunteer [00:06:00 ] trip and fix children with cleft lip and cleft palette. And I fell in love with that opportunity, the mission and the purpose. And that's how I became what I do today, which is a reconstructive plastic surgeon.

[00:06:16 ] Patrick Swift, PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:06:16 ] I love that. I love that story. And in your bio, your, you serve as a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Stanford university school of medicine and your faculty of Stanford graduate school of business, where you teach courses on strategy and leadership in lectures on informational tech and healthcare policy. And so you're taking the wisdom and the heart of your calling and the love for caring for patients that cleft lip surgeries, you, you, you it's, it's tangible how you can transform lives. Um, with, uh, medicine and how you've, you've brought that into the work you're doing here. So let's talk about patients and, and culture.

[00:06:53 ] And so, you know, from that perspective of, of, uh, which that just made me laugh, it's, it's, uh, you know, didn't want to go [00:07:00 ] into a career that involved politics that you went in medicine, and here we are, who am I? God, talk about politicized. Um, let's put the lid and let's put the politics aside. If we, if we put the heart of healthcare to this conversation and kick the politics to the curb, um, let's talk about the culture, um, of medicine and how it's impacting patients.

[00:07:22 ] Robert Pearl, MD: [00:07:22 ] Culture represents beliefs, the values, the norms that we as clinicians learn medical school residency, or we carry the with us throughout our entire career. It's not written down in any textbook. It's not giving a lecture, but it's through the stories through the language that people use. When I try to explain to people about culture, I start in the 1850s with Ignaz Semmelweis.

[00:07:57 ] He's a physician in [0