Bob Baker - The Performance of Medicine: Techniques From the Stage to Optimize the Patient Experience and Restore the Joy of Practicing Medicine

MORE Praise

Those doctors who attend to the interpersonal side of medicine will appreciate this book, and mechanical doctors will ignore it. Perhaps it could be assigned to those guys.

Richard Mark Steinbook, MD

Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of Miami

During medical school, we were dazzled by Bobs magical performances as we watched him becoming a first-rate physician. With this book, he applies both of these talents to show other doctors how to cope with the many challenges of contemporary medical practice. This book is a fascinating performance by a truly inspired physician.

Jack M. Gorman, MD

CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at Franklin Behavioral Consultants

Why dont they teach these strategies in medical school and nursing school?! Baker offers a novel approach to delivering a patient experience that can immediately improve patient outcomes and satisfaction.

Shep Hyken

Customer Service Expert, New York Times bestselling author of The Amazement Revolution

I plan to order copies as holiday gifts for my work partners.

Raj Madhok, MD

Dermatology Specialists, Edina, MN

Also by Bob Baker, MD

Successful Surgery : A Doctors Mind-Body Guide to Help You Through Surgery

Copyright 2018 Bob Baker, MD

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 13: 978-0-9996169-0-1 (trade hardcover)

ISBN 13: 978-0-9996169-1-8 (trade paperback)

ISBN 13: 978-0-9996169-2-5 (eBook)

Published by Best Job Productions, LLC

ThePerformanceOfMedicine.com

The Performance of Medicine service mark and stethoscope with star trademark are registered marks of Robert W. Baker, MD

Book and Cover Design by CB Messer

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my patients.

For the healers.

And for Marcia.

Contents

Authors Note: Although I wrote this book for physicians, it applies equally to all other direct healthcare providers: nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, chiropractors, physical therapists, and even dentists. If you are any of these, please substitute yourself whenever I refer to doctors.

Foreword

In April 2016 I had the privilege of arranging a presentation on patient experience by my friend Dr. Bob Baker for colleagues at my hospital. Before the date, we discussed how his presentation, titled The Performance of Medicine: Putting the Patient Experience Center Stage would explain how he uses his experience as a magician and ventriloquist to attain super patient satisfaction. I admit I was more than skeptical. I did not see how making a dummy talk or how smoke and mirrors could improve our Press Ganey scores. However, with his survey ratings ranking him consistently at the 99th percentile nationally, I knew he must be onto something, or he was practicing real hocus-pocus. Either way, I was interested and more than impressed at the end of his presentation when those in attendance said they were eager to put into practice the simple strategies he taught: techniques used by all performers to delight their audiences and which Dr. Baker uses to connect with his patients.

For thirty-five years, Dr. Bob Baker has been a practicing gastroenterologist in a competitive and demanding market where patient expectations go well past preventing and healing illness, and care experiences are judged equally on the quality of the interactions between caregivers and their patients. Dr. Baker has consistently received the highest ratings possible by his patients in reviews and on patient surveys. He has thrived in the modern healthcare paradigm using the performance skills hes borrowed from an even longer career onstage, skills he explains in this book.

Dr. Baker sets the stage by jocularly tracing his journey through the business of healthcare, which has changed dramatically since his days as a medical student. He starts before insurers became involved in medical decisions and doctor reimbursement and continues through today, when the pressure is greater than ever to do more with less. In this new environment, doctors need to understand what patients want, need, and expect. Physicians must use skills they may not have learned in medical school to make every moment with the patient magical. No longer is it acceptable to deliver healthcare while focusing only on diagnosis and treatment, and with service pushed backstage and out of sight. Today, the entire patient experience is subject to review.

Dr. Baker approaches every patient interaction as a performance and shows, in this book, how doctors can incorporate the techniques used by every performer before, during, and after patient interactions to turn each encounter into a five-star patient experience. Dr. Baker borrows from his long career in front of large audiences to delight the small audiences in his exam room. His techniques are based on sound research in the field of service excellence by some of the most prominent experts on the topic of patient experience as well as from the accumulated knowledge of award-winning thespians.

I know you what youre thinking. Youre not an actor. Well, rest assured, you dont have to enroll in The Juilliard School to become a better doctor or nurse. Theres an actor in all of us, and you already have many of the skills needed to perform better in the exam room. You just need to use them, and Dr. Baker explains how, when, and, more importantly, why to use them in a straightforward manner that is easy to understand. With the essential points highlighted at the end of each chapter, this book makes it effortless to retain its central ideas, much the same way a competent practitioner discharges his patients with a concise list of the signs and symptoms to look out for. Dr. Baker shares plenty of anecdotes that will make you laugh as you read them, but the concepts presented are based on science, years of his personal experience, and plenty of trial and error.

The Performance of Medicine is primarily intended for doctors in outpatient practices, but the information and techniques work for nurses, nurse practitioners, technicians, and in hospitals as well as in outpatient settings.

As a hospital administrator who has worked most of my professional life trying to improve patient satisfaction, I wish every doctor with privileges in my hospital would read this book and put Dr. Bakers techniques to work. They are easy to implement. They will not add more time to encounters, but they work like magic and will make every patient experience worthy of a standing ovation.

Michael Maione

Director of Customer Relations

Stony Brook University Hospital

Introduction

Weve all been patients too.

I was in my urologists office, sitting on a small exam table where I was about to undergo an outpatient vasectomy. Yes, I was a bit anxious. The visit up until then had gone smoothly enough. The receptionist was efficient, if not overly friendly, and a pleasant medical assistant had escorted me to the small procedure room and told me to remove all my clothes except underwear.

The minutes ticked by. This was years before I had a smartphone to distract myself. There were no magazines, even old, tattered ones, to look at. I had surveyed the contents of the room several times already. I had refreshed my knowledge of my personal anatomy from the anatomical chart hanging on the wall and was hoping it was not there for my doctor to refer to. Now there was nothing to do but sit and wait. And wait.