All right, let's begin, ladies and gentlemen, and non-binaries. Welcome to the sixth presentation of ACOM's version of TED Talks. The last one we did was a virtual presentation in which we had three TED speakers. Today is our sixth year in which we're doing it. We're back to doing it live, and we have four outstanding TED speakers. So I want to tell you that you have picked the right room, because you're going to be getting two sessions for the price of one. Not only are you going to hear fascinating ideas that will entertain and inspire you, but you're also going to hear four of the best presentations of this entire conference. So you're in for a treat. So the mandatory disclosures, neither my co-moderator, Dr. Constantine Jean, nor I, nor any of our four TED speakers have commercial conflicts of interest. And as Oscar Wilde said, I have nothing to declare except my genius. That's what you're going to be getting. So why are we here? What does TED have to do with OEM? I'm sure you're all familiar with the TEDx presentations, the traditional TEDx. You've seen them, or you've heard them on the radio. There are now hundreds of them, and they focus on technology, on entertainment, and on design. And it has been very popular, and ACOM has our own version. And we're focusing on teaching, on education, and on delight. So that is the ACOM version of TED. Our goal is to inspire, and persuade, and convince. That's a core competency from the Accreditation Commission on Graduate Medical Education. Communication skills are essential, particularly for us as occupational physicians, because we have to convince and persuade people in constant meetings throughout the day. And one preparation for that is to learn how to give a great, short presentation. So the Teaching Academy was formed a number of years ago to try to inspire and teach every speaker at the ACOM conferences to be a much more powerful and effective speaker. Our goal was to take good speakers to being great presenters, to being outstanding teachers. That's transformation. And what we have witnessed with our four speakers is that each of them has had more than six sessions with a mentor, and coaching sessions with Dr. Gene and me, and they have definitely gone from being good to being great. And today, I am confident that you will be outstanding. We teach skills of communication and persuasion. And every one of us in this room needs to be learning to improve our communication skills, going from being a novice to being marginal and good, and then excellent, great, and outstanding. There are five videos that the Teaching Academy prepared. They're available online at the ACOM website. The first talks about the journey of becoming an outstanding presenter. The second, how to plan and organize a presentation, looking for the great idea and the essential supporting elements. The third has to do with teaching materials. How do you design slides, handouts, games, props in order to facilitate an outstanding learning experience? Fourth, what are your skills at actually delivering the talk? And that's another important piece. There's a whole video on delivery methods. And finally, engaging your audience. So we commend these free videos to you as individuals, and particularly as speakers at ACOM programs. Today, our four outstanding TED speakers do, in fact, represent the title of this session, The Future of Occupational Medicine, because the future of occupational medicine lies in younger people who are brilliantly trained, who have extraordinary skills, and make many of us old fogies really feel quite humble. So here are four speakers, David Corretto, Jill Rosenthal, Bob Blink, and Sonia Myers. And so without further ado, we will start with David Corretto. So let me give you a brief introduction. And while I'm doing that, we will move over to his PowerPoint slide set. David is the medical director for employee health services in the Sacramento Valley region of Sutter Health. So he works for a very large, complex, and successful organization. He's been active in leadership in the Western Occupational Medical Association. He's on the board of directors. And he's also been very active in ACOM. And he is now vice chair of the Component Management Relations Committee. So that means he's going to play a key role in how each of our local and regional components relates to the national organization. But for now, let's look at the title. Interesting title. Hmm? What is an ice axe and crampons taught? What did they teach me about practicing occupational medicine? Welcome, David. Think of a time when you have felt stretched in your practice of occupational medicine. Have you ever felt frustrated due to a challenging case or during a difficult patient conversation? Or perhaps maybe you just took on a new job, but were slightly afraid that maybe you didn't have quite the level of skills to be successful. We talk of needing to know our limits, but how do you know them? How do we thrive in the face of clinical uncertainty? Two years after training, I was comfortable in my practice. But I felt stagnant. I just didn't want to treat case after case of lower back pain for the rest of my career. So I started taking on more complex patients. Why not? What could go wrong? Jim was a roofer who fell from two stories. And he presented with multiple fractures, on anticoagulation for a cerebral thrombus, and an incredibly high pain burden. To top it off, he told me that he was on suboxone prior to his injury. I worried, did I have the ability to be able to safely manage his care as his primary treating physician? Faced with this uncertainty, I found myself increasingly relying on skills and lessons learned from my other hobby and passion, mountaineering, and applying them to my practice of occupational medicine. Here are some lessons from two climbs. Mountaineering is the sport of climbing mountains with technical gear, such as an ice axe and crampons. Crampons are metal spikes that affix to the bottom of your boots to allow you to climb up an icy slope. Whereas your ice axe, your ice axe enables you to maintain two steps or two points of contact with each step on the mountain. Together these tools are my PPE for this activity. And knowing how to use them is fundamental for safe travel. When I first saw Mount Shasta, I thought to myself, I'm going to get to the top. And so I trained for months and months. And I came to the mountain feeling much like a newly minted residency graduate, full of knowledge, not a lot of experience. And so at 2 a.m. on my summit day, I awoke at 2 a.m. and I wheeled myself out of my warm sleeping bag, put on my frozen boots and crampons, and choked down a single bowl of instant oatmeal. I left camp with my ice axe in hand, excited for what lay ahead. After two hours of climbing, I noticed I started to have a pit of nausea and a mild headache. I distracted myself by focusing on my footwork, and my left foot was numb. Pressing on, I climbed for another hour, at which point my headache worsened, my footsteps unsteady, and that nausea had turned to dry heaves. I was done. I bonked. Bonking is the technical term for sudden fatigue while performing an endurance activity due to the depletion of glycogen stores. It's otherwise known as hitting the wall. This is hitting the wall at 12,600 feet. In bonking, I learned that for all my physical preparation, I had neglected my nutrition, revealing my practice gap for this climb. And just like in clinical practice, where each patient teaches us for the next, I was at my limit, I learned from it, and it prepared me for the next climb. So mountaineering is a continuous series of go, no-go decisions to manage the uncertainty that is ever present around you. In clinical medicine, we manage patient uncertainty with vital signs. Heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and temperature. On the mountain, we have to remain vigilant for rockfall, snow conditions, exposure, and the weather. We awoke to a clear sky, and it developed into a clear blue sky over the rest of the day. We ascended rapidly up the crux of the route on Mount Whitney, which is this 50-degree inline to this ridgeline. We made great headway. And it's exciting when you reach this ridgeline, because you're 300 feet below the summit. However, upon achieving this ridgeline, we were smacked in the face with 60-mile-per-hour winds, and we noticed that clouds were developing on the horizon. Tomorrow's storm was starting a day early. So what did we do? As a team, we came together, and we had a go-no-go discussion to manage how the changing weather would affect our summit pace, knowing that the summit is only halfway. You'd have to get back to the protection of camp by the end of the day. And this is just like in clinical practice, where a patient can decompensate. The conditions change, just like the weather. We had to make a decision in the moment with incomplete information. And so we made a tough decision. 300 feet below the summit, we decided to descend, and we did it together as a team. Now let's see how these lessons applied to my patient, Jim, and helped elevate his care. I recognized that I did have the knowledge, the experience, and the resourcefulness, my ice axe and crampons, to travel safely through the complexity of his care. I identified the source of my uncertainty with Jim, his opioid taper, and his previous history of suboxone. But equally important, my reaction to this uncertainty. I was afraid that failure to manage his recovery would put his livelihood at risk, or at worse, injure him further. When I got to the crux of his management plan, transitioning from opioids back to his suboxone, I realized I could not take it any further. I was at my limit. And so I reached out to his addiction medicine specialist to coordinate this final piece of his care. Jim was able to return to full duty without disability and maintain his livelihood. Knowing my limits enabled me to take care of Jim. And these lessons from Mount Nearing allowed me to expand my practice so I could do it well. So let's all acknowledge that a life in occupational medicine is an exercise in uncertainty. We have to make decisions around causation, treatment, our patient's ability to engage with the return to work process, often with incomplete information. To further illustrate this point, we had to learn to care for others during a global pandemic. The next time you feel stretched, realize you have your ice axe and crampons. You have your knowledge, your experience, and your resourcefulness to safe travel through a challenging case. Learn when you feel you're at your limits and rely on each other, your friends and colleagues, to travel safely out of a tough situation. Apply these lessons to your practice of occupational medicine and thrive in the face of clinical uncertainty. Let's see. Can we get the lavalier up? There we are. Can you hear me? All right. Good. Well, that was great. That was great. I guess we're going to go from the highs of the mountain to a different direction. Our next speaker is Dr. Jill Rosenthal. She has been the senior vice president and chief medical officer for the Zenith Insurance Company for the past 10 years. She has also been medical director of General Motors Midwest Generation and also worked with two J&J companies. And she received her M.D., M.A., and her M.P.H. from the University of Illinois. She's board certified in occupational medicine and has many other accomplishments, too numerous to mention. But this is given a broad perspective, which I think you see will be very interesting in her presentation. But she has told me that her favorite role is that of mom to her four children. So, I'm going to start with a riddle. A man and his son are horribly injured in an accident. They're taken to the hospital. They're put in beds next to each other. The doctor walks in and says, I can't take care of this boy. Why not? He's my son. Well, how can that be? Ah, he has two dads. So this is about unconscious bias, right? It is the idea that your brain makes judgments and decisions without even your realizing it. It's involuntary. It's out of your awareness. I am 90% deaf in my right ear. I am very concerned about the biases that exist around people with hearing difficulties. And I have not gotten a hearing aid when I should. So I think about that against a teacher not that long ago who while I was in a class and I couldn't hear her and I asked her to speak up, she says to me, shall I enunciate for you, Jill? Wow. Yes, please. So I think I might worry a little bit less about the unconscious bias and get that hearing aid. Some other things about me that perhaps may elicit some judgment without your meaning to. When I was younger, I lived in a double-wide trailer. I was born and raised and choose to live in the state of Florida. And I have a transgender stepson. How does this compare to conscious bias? When I was in medical school, and I was in the OR doing an ACL repair, I was so excited. The orthopedic surgeon hands me this tool to hand bore that ACL repair, and I'm sweating. He then takes it away, and he says, well, if you were a guy, I would have given you this. And he takes the electric drill and goes, zoop. We have to consider biases in order to understand the importance of diversity and inclusion. But why should we care? Why should we focus on this? Because it's the right thing to do. We know this intuitively. It's our moral obligation. We've learned the golden rule from childhood. But there's actually a business case for this. Global companies have shown that when you pay attention and foster a culture of diversity and inclusion, you attract talent. You retain that talent. You advance your customer satisfaction. You drive innovation, and you make more money. Now, diversity and inclusion are separate and distinct entities. They're not the same. They're not interchangeable, but they're interconnected. So diversity is the makeup of an entity. Inclusion considers how well you consider the perspectives of different groups of people and actually integrate it into the environment. Look at all these dimensions. The first thing to come to mind for people would be culture, race, religion. But look at this. And this is not exhaustive. We've got disability, military status, body habitus, background experience, personality style, generation, so many different dimensions to people. And if you miss that critical one for that person in front of you, you might miss a very important opportunity to help them. Because this impacts the patients we treat. We hired a bilingual field nurse at work. And in doing so, we also recognize that she grew up in an agricultural community, a very important part of our population that we take care of. And guess what happened when she went out into the field? Those patients had a speedier and sustained recovery. They got better. What about the people we work with? I have somebody on my team who is the best talent that I've got. She celebrates the holiday of Diwali. I had never heard of this holiday. And upon learning that this was an important holiday to somebody important to me who I valued on my team, I had to learn about this holiday. I had to know when it happened. Because I can't schedule a meeting on that day. That's not how I show her respect. That's not how I show her value and support. And it also made me think about other people on my team. Does anybody celebrate Ramadan? Well, if so, during Ramadan, I shouldn't have a meal and meeting combined from sunrise to sunset when they're fasting. That wouldn't be right. That doesn't show value. That doesn't show respect and support. And these are people critical to the success of what we're trying to accomplish. These are people who are amazing patient and physician advocates. So how can you focus on diversity and inclusion? We at AECOM have not historically been the best with diversity and inclusion. But if you look around this conference, if you look at the speakers at this conference, and if you look at our leadership, we're doing a lot better, a lot better. There's more to be done. So to get broader perspectives on councils, committees, and leadership, I'm posing a call to action. If you or anybody you know wants to get engaged, should get engaged, you know that they have a passion around occupational environmental medicine, have them volunteer. Get engaged. We need everybody's voice. We need to represent our membership. This will provide value to membership. And ultimately, this will help us sustain the future of AECOM. Because when I is replaced with we, even illness becomes wellness. Malcolm X. Thank you. Two down, two to come. How you doing? Thank you. Our third TED speaker this year could be called Robert, but he prefers to be called Bob, Bob Blink. And I think Bob Blink could really be described as a man for all seasons. He's an independent OEM consultant in his own consulting practice. And in that role, he's a medical director to many employers, to labor management and health programs, a nationwide medical provider, a large group of California hospitals, and if that wasn't enough, an international toxicology advisory group. He has been a member of the California OSHA Standards Board, and you'll hear more about that. But even more, you're going to hear about one thing that he loves, and that is public policy, engagement in public policy. Welcome, Bob. Thank you. One of the most important events in my professional life happened one evening at an occupational medicine conference, at the end of the day, in a hotel bar. And I just ordered myself a glass of very mediocre Ginfendel. I was sitting there talking with some friends. Paul Papanek was among them. And we were standing there griping, as one does. And the gripe of the day was workers' compensation system, how bad it was, and how we couldn't understand why somebody didn't do something about it. Why doesn't AECOM do something about these terrible workers' comp systems? Why doesn't WOMA do something? And I looked at Paul, and he just stared at me. My words hung in the air. Why doesn't somebody do something? And then I got it. I got involved, started working with WOMA's legislative committee. We had meetings weekly. We'd try to plot, see what's coming down the road, interact with agencies, working together to solve problems. Got involved with AECOM, and eventually got onto the California OSHA Standards Board, as well. Around that time, soon after that glass of Ginfendel, I saw a patient who, let's call him George, was a big guy, maybe 300 pounds, 6 foot 4. He was a forklift driver. And George had hurt his back at work, clear-cut injury, really no problem about it. But he couldn't do his regular job. And for some reason, the insurer wouldn't accept the injury, at least not right away. They paid for his medical care, but they wouldn't accept any modified duty assignments, because they hadn't accepted the claim. So George couldn't get to work, and they wouldn't pay him. So I saw him a couple of times. A couple of weeks later, I was seeing another patient in the back. And my staff came back to get me. Dr. Blink, please come up to the front desk. And they looked worried. So I got up to the front desk, and there's George standing at the front desk, just looming over them. And he was wearing this filthy overcoat, and he smelled bad. And when he spoke, he roared more than he spoke English. And I knew him well enough that I wasn't worried. So I said, come on back. Let's talk. So we got in the exam room, and I said, George, what's going on? Well, it turns out that although he had a decent job and he'd been doing all right, he in fact lived a hand-to-mouth existence. And when the insurance company cut him off and he couldn't do his job, after a few weeks, he lost his lodging. He was homeless. He was living under a bridge. And he was cold, and he was hungry, and he was sick. So I got on the phone, called the insurer, tried to straighten things out, hit that brick wall that we're all so familiar with, and got him in touch with what resources I could in the community so they could help him get through this rough patch, and started writing blistering letters to the insurance company and so forth. And I never saw George again. So what can you do about something like this? This is wrong. All of us in the room have had some experience. Most of us have something like this. How can we allow people to fall through the cracks like this? What can we do? How can we move the needle to improve the situation? Well, again, around the same time, there were clinics and providers who were good quality providers in California who were at risk of not being able to practice any further because the compensation rates for office visits, for thinking and communicating with patients, were really bad. And so we started negotiating with the workers' comp system. Every eight years or so in California, there's a spasm of reorganization. And we were in one of those periods. And so we advocated strongly to improve our relative value system compensation numbers for evaluation and management services. And we kept at it. And we got pushback. It wasn't easy. There were significant people who were on the other side of this who were not at all happy about it because they viewed it as a zero-sum game, and that if we got compensated better for office visits, they would get compensated less for their procedures. And so we had a struggle. And we pushed, and we pushed, and we had other allies. And we found who had other similar benefits and worked together with them. And eventually, we were victorious. We got the increase. And we got a yearly increase after that, which lasts to this day. So many providers who would otherwise not be able to exert additional attention to terrible problems like George's were able to stay in business and maybe do some good. So that was very rewarding. Now I'll tell you a little different story of what happens with public advocacy. This is concerning lead. So in 2007, Michael Kosnett wrote a paper about lead and how it affected huge numbers of people, mostly through hypertension, to damage their health and even cause early death. And this is largely because of the antiquated numbers for lead levels in worker exposures. So we started advocating to the California Ocean Standards Board to try and improve those numbers. At that time, they'd been in place for about 35 years without change. And so we worked, and we worked. I went to meetings, and I tried to redesign the language that was being used. And we tried to get those levels down. And eventually, I got onto the Standards Board. And every month, we'd have a meeting. And I would try to bring it up almost at every meeting. What are we doing about lead? And the staff would say, well, we're working on it, but we've got one more thing to do, one more thing to do. And here we are 15 years later, and the needle hasn't moved until last year. Michigan finally, through their own efforts in this realm, finally got that level down somewhat because of some of the work that had been done in California. And we know that this fall, we will be having some action in California as well. And just learned the other day that Federal OSHA is looking at it. And there's a pretty good chance we'll be getting a nationwide reduction, saving many, many, many people's health and lives as a result of our persistence over 15 years. And again, it's a whole big group of people doing this. Get involved. Try to exert your influence. I'm sure we've all been in the situation where you're seeing one patient at a time. And that one patient, you're doing the best you can. You're helping them. And then you go to the next room, and you've got to help that one person again. And sometimes you go, this is like emptying the ocean with a teaspoon. What can we do? How can we fix the system so that fewer people need rescuing so that we can help a large population rather than one patient at a time? Well, part of that is by getting involved in public policy and seeing what you can do. Join the effort to lower those lead levels. Join the effort to improve the workers' compensation system in your state. And maybe you can even exert some efforts to larger issues beyond occupational medicine and work on the environment. And these are things that we can all work on together. So let's exert our influence, work together, enjoy our companionship, and try to do some good in the world. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I'm ready to sign up right now. This is great. This is great. Thank you. Our last speaker is Dr. Sonia Myers, who has fallen in love with the Bay Area, the people, the culture. But for seven years, she worked in the tech industry because she had to support her habit. But becoming a mom led her to consider scope of work and understand her priorities. And the University of, let's see, UIC, University of Illinois at Chicago, get that right, offered her a medical education. And so she took it. And she pivoted from anesthesiology to occupational medicine residency and had a wonderful time and is now with us as an occupational medicine board certified physician. And she enjoys learning how to pronounce people's name in a way that they understand. And she loves surprising her patients with her visits, which are like a sabado diante, even though it's a weekday. She likes to have fun with people. And she's been with her husband for 21 years, has two children, 18 and 12. And she has two loyal, yet opinionated, Basset hounds. Sonia, come on up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Tha way to save myself. March 2020 came roaring in like a lion. I was scared of going to work. I was scared of catching a disease that might kill me. There was no vaccine. So I tried a bunch of things to try and calm myself. So I tried exercise, but my knees couldn't take all that running and neither could my dogs. I tried meditation. Oh, but it was so boring. I tried music and dancing and it helped. And I could stop ruminating, but it only lasted for about three minutes. So I wondered, what did I do before? When I was a kid, we used to ride in the car to piano lessons and we were scared to go. So every time we got in the car, we would start singing. And our favorite music was from a, from a movie called The Sound of Music. So we would rock out in the car every single time. And by the time we got there, we felt much better. And so I started singing. I started singing at home. I started singing in the car at lunchtime. And you know, I started feeling a lot better. My heart rate dropped. I wasn't so nervous. Was this, was this voodoo? Was this a placebo? I want to invite you to try it out and let's see what happens. So you can, you, if you don't feel safe, you can hum and it's the same effect. Okay. So let's see. La, la, la, la. Okay, let's see. I'll count you in. One, two, three, four. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Brown paper packages tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite things. Okay, let's keep going. Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels. Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles. Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. These are a few of my favorite things. When the dog bites, when the bees sting, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so sad. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And what is the vagus nerve? It's in charge of toning down your sympathetic drive. It connects your brain with your body, which is exactly what meditation is supposed to do. It connects to your heart so you can slow down and relax, just like exercise does. You don't end up eating your feelings and it transports your neurotransmitters from your gut to your brain. I had hoped that there was a way to do this automatically and it turns out there is. And it turns out that the side effect is humming. You don't need an implantable device in order to hum. That just gets in the way of getting an MRI if you need one. You have everything you need right here to calm yourself down. So in trying to calm myself down about the pandemic and save myself, I tried all of these different things that are all part of polyvagal therapy for stimulating the vagus nerve. But some things were too long, took too long. Some things just were too short. But singing, singing was just right. Oops, let's go forward. Can singing make you a better doctor? It made me a better doctor. I risked sounding like a lunatic to my colleagues in the office, but I felt better. I didn't know what kind of dose you need to make you feel better. I didn't know what kind of dosage you need I didn't know what kind of dose you need to make yourself feel better. But this, your voice, this is an off-label use. So you just titrate that to a fact. So let's try this again, okay? And I think this is a song that most of us know from when we were three. So let's see. Let me count you in, okay? One, two, three, four. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. Good job. Well, could this work for you? Well, to paraphrase one of my favorite, favorite authors, try it, try it. You may see, you may like it. It worked for me. Great job. He's gonna do a few slides. And then we're gonna go. Wow, pretty neat, huh? That's fantastic. We just wanted to talk a little bit about how we're going to do this. And we're going to talk a little bit about how we're going to do this. And we're going to talk a little bit about how we're going to do this. And we're going to talk a little bit about how we're going to do this. And we're going to talk a little bit about how we're going to do this. We just wanted to talk real briefly before we end. And we're going to invite all of the panelists up here. In fact, while I'm coming, why don't you guys come on up? We're gonna have them talk a little bit about their experience. Get this out of the way here. And we have some questions for them. And really, we have plans for the future. We really want to talk about TED Talks. And these are eight to 18-minute presentations. We also want to start teaching occupational medicine physicians, members of the college, everyone interested, in elevator speeches, two-minute presentations where you come up with the kernel of what is occupational medicine when somebody says, do you mean occupational therapy? And then, of course, there's the escalator speech for where you have 30 seconds, you're on the escalator. And memorable memes, one-liners. We need to, we do a lot of good in the world. And we really need to kind of not hide our light under a bushel. So if you know somebody in the future who wants to be a TED speaker and candidate, go through the training. It's a bit of a commitment. We train for about three or four months. It's two to three meetings a month. But in between, the speaker is working on their speech. Please let us know. Give myself or Kent an email or a call. We'll be happy to talk with them. So this is, those of you who, we won't go through this. Now this is, okay, this is an example of a slide you shouldn't put up. Nobody can read it, right? Okay. This is from Chris Anderson, who is the CEO of TED. And he basically has a book called TED Talks, which I commend to everybody. Anyway, these are the rules of starting with an idea. Really understand where the audience is and speak to them from where they are. You know, bring in sort of concepts one by one so you don't snow them. And of course, with occupational medicine, so eclectic, there's a chance of doing that. And you want to use examples and metaphors and ultimately say something meaningful. And really, with that, we have some questions for our panel. Panel members, let's see, you all have, you have microphones, okay. I wanted to ask the first question, if you could kind of take it in turns. Starting off, let's start with Bob Lang. Bob, what inspired you to become a TED speaker? Well, I enjoy speaking and do a decent amount of it, but I'm definitely the wing it kind of a speaker where I'll have a list of bullets. And that's fine, it seems to work well. I thought, what would happen if I actually devoted myself to practicing and learning how to do it and accompanying it with the appropriate gestures and voice control and so forth? I thought it was a well worth the experiment. And it was definitely a good experience. Great. David. I had a mentor many years ago who said that if you ever had the opportunity for some form of public speaking training, to take it. And it was, I've sat in on a few of these in the past, thought it was really exciting and wanted to challenge myself in this way. Fantastic. Jill. Yeah, same, it was a challenge. I was very nervous about the idea, but I did look forward to working with both of you. And so glad I did. Okay. And Sonia. So I saw the TED Talks in 2019, and I was inspired and even more inspired when Kent Peterson came to walk in San Diego to tell us about this. And I wanted to do it. And then the pandemic happened. What pandemic? Okay, well, we're gonna combine in the interest of time, the next two questions and we'll go in reverse order. Sonia, we're gonna stay on you. What skills did you learn? And what words of wisdom would you have for others as far as what steps help you move to evolve? So I learned to be more succinct with my ideas. We have a saying in, I think it's in WOMA, short is good, long is bad. Even when short is bad, it's still good. And even when long is good, it's bad. Thank you, Dr. Walter Newman for that, that's right. Okay, Jill, what skills did you learn? What steps in your evolution were the most valuable and what words of wisdom do you have? So I think that when presenting in front of a group of people that it's safe to be vulnerable. And I also learned how to present without my notes, which shocked me. They're up there, but I never use them. I had to have a blankie. Words of wisdom, I think everybody should do this. It really was challenging. It was a commitment. I was probably frustrating to work with at times. But I definitely evolved as a speaker. So definitely do it. Thank you, Jill. David. For me, I like scripts. And even though I don't follow it in my public speaking, when I write, I like strunk as white, less is more. And so with this process, you really learn that less is more. And so in that, you'll learn how to do a through line, which is find that one thing that you want your talk to be about. And as you go through the process, you'll just whittle away all the extraneous stuff that just doesn't need to be there. So it's been a really great process from that regard. Thanks, David. Bob. I think the main thing I learned was that number one, by preparing more than the minimum amount, you actually get out of it. It's worth the effort. Another thing that was really, I think, interesting was I'm definitely used to doing bullets on slides. And by staying away from bullets and doing images to accompany the talk, I thought that was a really important learning. And I loved hearing feedback I got from Kent and you and Warner. Okay, that's great. Final question, and we'll start in the middle this time. I think we'll start with David. Why would you recommend this to others if you, well, first, would you, and then why would you? I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's interested in honing their skills. Again, it's be able to hone that message and to be consistent and also have it come from a very personal place. Jill. Clearly, I would recommend this. I already said that. I think one thing that I'm sorry is that I didn't go to your rehearsals and hear your feedback because I think I could have learned a little bit more that way. And I would recommend this because you challenge us to be better. It's a bracing experience, isn't it? Yes, Sonia. I definitely would recommend this to anybody who wants to be better at speaking in public. I think my talk was something that opened up a great deal of vulnerability. Because not only do I not like speaking in public, singing is, in front of a crowd of all of my closest friends, is something else. But I feel so much more prepared to speak in public now. You mean you don't normally sing on stage? No. Bob, why would you recommend this experience to others? If you would, you, and why would you? I don't know. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, I think that having a formal process for improving anything you do is valuable. And you guys understand this in ways that are way above my level of understanding. Okay, so Dean has taught us to avoid the lettuce patch where you're exhorting people, lettuce patch, lettuce patch, lettuce patch. He's exhorting people, let us do this, let us do that. He taught me to avoid the fig leaf posture where you have your hands clasped in front of your drawing. There are many other tricks of the trade along the way. So basically being present, being able to hear some of that wisdom is really something. So there you have it with TED-6. And it brings us to TED-7. We've already had two people who asked if they could be TED speakers. I'd invite those of you in the audience, and I know we have a lot of former TED speakers here today, to email us, call us, or come up and give us your names right at the end of this presentation. One thing you'll be doing is working with a mentor. And we had four extraordinary mentors working with our TED speakers this year. Bernice Paplowski, Warner Hudson, Glenn Pransky. And Andy Yorgosin, who's here today and who's a former TED speaker. So if you're thinking of a process, you would meet with your mentor, talk about what ideas really inspire you and you want to share with your colleagues. You meet with Dean and me and go over the ideas and pick an idea. That's step one. Step two, you put together the key ideas of what you're going to present. And there are always going to be too many. So it's a question of paring back. Then you develop your materials. What are you going to actually show or use? You, Bob, were originally going to speak without any props, but at the end, you decided the slides would enhance because as Dean said yesterday morning, a picture is worth a thousand words. And then finally, you practice the delivery. So I invite all of you to have the courage to step forward because there's room for many TED speakers in the future of occupational medicine. So thank you, TED speakers. Thank you, mentors. Thank you, Dean. Thank all of you who are here. This is a wrap. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Bravo! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

TED Talks

Occupational Medicine

communication skills

Teaching Academy

outstanding presenter

engaging the audience

TED speakers

personal experiences

inspire change