The Broken State Of The Modern Healthcare System - Doctor Mike

Dr. Mike, welcome to the show.

Excited to be here. Let's, uh, chat evidence-based medicine, my favorite. (laughs)

(laughs) It's having a resurgence at the moment. What's it like being on that side of the fence?

Well, you know, I feel like I was one of the early adopters doing this on social media, because when I was coming about during my residency training, it was mostly people doing it on television, and doing it quite poorly, might I add, in terms of confusing people or selling some miracle cures. So that's why I started social media medical conversations, and now it's just exploded into every different possible niche. Whatever you wanna find online, there's a confirmation bias waiting for you.

Well, that's the problem, this multiplicity and the democratization of access to health information sounds great in principle, but in practice, what it feels like to a muggle like me or everybody that's listening is just confusion and an abundance of conflicting messages.

Yeah, I think it's, uh, encouraged all of us to develop healthier skepticism, which I feel like before the age of social media, we might have been lacking. But now with the rise of AI, people don't right away see a video and assume it's real. In fact, they're more likely to say, "Is this real? Where is this from? Can I see the original video? Can I see the sources and description of where the evidence is coming from?" That stuff gets me excited.

One of the problems with that is when skepticism runs too far, and when even-

That's cynicism, my friend.

... credentialed experts, "No, no, they're part of big..." Insert your favorite evil organization of choice. Big ag, big pharma, big-

Sure.

... food, big earbuds, big whatever.

Yep. I think, uh, in that regard, there's negativity, if you wanna find it, everywhere. It's about understanding where that negativity lies and how it impacts people's messaging. So I think just broad stroking or broad brushing certain subjects in health care will always be an incorrect message. So you can't say anything is all good or all bad. You can't say humans are all good or all bad. In fact, that's the first thing we really teach when we institute cognitive behavioral therapy with patients that are struggling with anxiety and depression, because it's very easy to get into this cognitive distortion of labeling things as all good or all bad or, "This is a terrible catastrophe and it's gonna end everything for me. Just because I got this C in my class, it means I'm a failure," and labeling ourselves, when in reality, if we just have a little bit of a pause, go back and think a little bit rationally with less of our emotional mind, we can go a lot further. And that's not easier s- That's a lot easier said than done. That's why we need the help of, uh, some mental health specialists from time to time.