Just off a great week at TED in Long Beach. Although by no means a health care conference (that would be TEDMED 2009), there are always a number of topics that are healthcare related and this year was no exception. Yes, this was the conference that Bill Gates unleashed mosquitoes on us-a well made point and fortunately no malaria spread.
A couple of presentation highlights that come immediately to mind for the PT world:
Lena Marie Klingvall: She presented on her life view and her accomplishments-all with only one limb. Swimmer, singer, master artist and calligrapher (which she aptly demonstrates with her toes and mouth), she simply has no limitations (better at chopsticks eating sushi than most). Interesting-her mother is an occupational therapist! Her talk will eventually be online-look for it and share it with your colleagues.
Daniel Ariely. Author of my favorite 2008 book, Predictably Irrational. He is a behavioral economist who initiated research after having 70% of his body burned and wondered whether or not it was better to have the bandages torn off quickly or slowly from a pain standpoint. After substantial research, it tuns out that it should be slow starting from areas of highest sensitivity (face) and ending where lowest (legs) so a gradient perception can occur making it much easier on the patient. When he went back to explain this to his nurses years later (who had believe that faster removal was better), they informed him that the pain of removing them from a nurse standpoint was better if fast so they wouldn’t have to watch the pain on the patient as much-and they would continue with that practice! Dan’s point-your intuitions are often wrong and that evidence and behavior (ahh, that’s what this blog is about right?) have substantial impact on patients.
Darius Weems. A new friend, Darius took the stage for just a few minutes to show off his wheelchair which was customized on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. He was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and never left his home until turning 15 when his buddies decided to show him the world and the footeage became a documentary called Darius Goes West and it is fantastic! They have yet to come home and won’t until they sell one million DVD’s to raise 17 Million Duchenne research and raise incredible awareness! A compelling story to say the least. Help me start a movement that will get a video in the hands of everybody affiliated with physical therapy and let’s get him and his home boys at our national conferences! Darius and his main buddy and travel mate are both TED Fellows.
Lots of other healthcare related super presenters including Oliver Sacks, Catherine Mohr (surgical robots and instrumentation), Bonnie Bassler (how bacterial communicate!), and Mary Roach (author of Stiff). Thankfully live bloggers like Ethan Zuckerman help recount speaker details.
However, I found the most relative presentation to be one of the last of the week by Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore College and author of the fantastic book Parodox of Choice (highly recommend this TED talk from 2005 on this topic). His lecture was on “practical wisdom and remoralization of professional life”. He described a hospital janitor, showing the responsibilities associated with the job in the via its job description on a large screen. There are tons of detail but none of them involves interacting with other people. When Schwartz interviewed hospital janitors about the challenges of their jobs, all the problems they listed dealt with other people. Good janitors knew not to vacuum the floor when guests were napping, or not to mop the floor when a patient was walking the hallways and restoring his strength. Being a hospital janitor involves interactions that require kindness, care and empathic thought that’s not in the job description.
A significant portion of his time was spent on the danger of “rules” and how they are often intended for us not to think. He further declared “when things go wrong, we reach for rules – better and more of them – and incentives – better and more of them.” He emphasized correctly that none of this will fix the problem-that what we need to do is teach practical wisdom and improvisation (would we pay an empathy bonus for the hospital janitor or make it a job requirement?) and he outlined ways to accomplish this.
So, as we try to liberate physical therapists from the shackles of regulations-let’s fight to put an end to “more rules” and the silly notion of 1% incentives and replace them with practical wisdom and improvisation.
Per TED lingo, now that’s “an idea worth spreading”.
