Yesterday at TED in California, I spoke with a Radiation Oncologist – a cancer doc. (Fun job, huh?) She told the story of her patient.
An older woman found out her cancer had spread to her brain. She was terminal. Not a question of whether, just a question of when.
She and her 62 year old husband hoped that she could make it long enough to celebrate their upcoming 38th anniversary.
The doctor found out she loved a certain violinist. She learned he was coming to town for a live performance. The couple didn’t have enough money for tickets so the doctor paid for them out of her own pocket.
I saw the pictures of them attending the concert. The concert itself had become a reason to live. And yes, this couple recently celebrated their 38th anniversary, just as they’d hoped.
The doctor says most of her colleagues think she’s crazy. “Why do you get all involved in the personal lives of your patients? That just gives you more emotional baggage to drag around. You need to focus on the technology.”
She described how students, as they move through medical school, get programmed to stop caring about their patients. I asked her: “In your profession, how many open up emotionally to their patients, and how many just focus on the technology?”
She said, “Maybe 5%.” She said, “I CAN’T shut myself off from my patients. That’s not who I am. Yes, it is harder to get to know a person who is struggling with a disease. But I’ve learned to absorb that. It’s so much richer than just doing medical procedures.”
I said to her, “I bet if you started a cancer clinic where ALL the doctors cared about their patients, people would flock to you. Even if they had to pay for it out of their own pocket.”
She replied, “I bet you’re right.”
I think it’s fascinating that after 15 years of the Internet finding its way into every nook and cranny of modern life, it’s #1 job is connecting people with people.
When you roll out of bed, stumble into your office and open up your laptop, it’s a real connection with a human being that you most seek.
One time my all-time favorite college professor, Dr. Knoll, told me that lots of pre-med students took his classes and you know what his #1 advice to them was, to prepare for a career in medicine?
“Read novels!”
He said, “Medical schools churn out technologists. But 80% of whatever created a person’s medical condition started in their head, not in their body. If you don’t understand people, you’ll never be a good doctor. If you read novels you’ll understand people and that will do more to make you a great doctor than anything you learn in medical school.”
Dr. Knoll’s advice is good for business too. You can get an MBA at Wharton or Stanford; you can know anything and everything about search engines and databases, but your #1 job is to be a student of PEOPLE.
Do you think that couple will ever stop talking about their doctor? Love your patients and they’ll never forget you.
Perry Marshall
Share This Post
About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
39 Comments on “The doctor who cared too much”
We certainly try to focus on both in my practice. It is a fine line alright, BUT I prefer the relationships. Nice thought… certainly worth the read. Thanks.
Read “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. About Doctors… “Patients file lawsuits because they have been harmed by shoddy medical care AND something else happens. What is that something else? How they were treated on a personal level by their Doctor.”
Love your patients and they’ll be less likely to sue you! :)
awesome post perry… :) thanks for sharing with us.
Do you ever watch House? There is a reason NOT to get involved emotionally. It makes you do a better job.
I know, House is just a TV series, but the point that you should not get involved emotionally in medical care is a very correct one and it has nothing to do with not having to have all that emotional baggage. It is about making rational decisions. Being emotionally involved will jeopardize rationality. In medical care that is not justifiable.
However, there is of course a large group of people who suffer from emotional problems which appear as physical problems. Being able to understand the emotional side in these cases is definitely an advantage. In the end, this is why placebos are prescribed.
But in the whole scheme of things in medical care, rationality should always come first, especially when dealing with things like cancer.
Being nice to people is not the same thing as being emotionally involved. Perry, you are a nice guy, but you don’t get emotionally involved with your customers. You teach the plain truth and don’t try to make them feel good for the sake of making them feel good.
You did learn how to pass emotions in your emails and are teaching this. But if you would be like this doctor, you would allow people to “pick your brain” during lunch, something that you refuse to allow, something you have written in one of your emails. I think you´re right with that attitude.
You care about what you teach, you don’t care about who you teach to. You do care about how you treat people, but nobody’s going to get a free lunch from you.
I care a great deal about my customers. It’s not possible to do what I do and not be emotionally involved with the people I coach.
Doesn’t mean I have to be entangled with them or codependent or anything like that. But make no mistake, I most definitely care about who I teach to. If you think otherwise you’ve missed something very, very significant.
The fact that I won’t go to lunch with people for free and let them pick my brain has nothing to do with being emotionally engaged or detached from people. It has to do with valuing my time and my knowledge and modeling what I teach. How can I teach my customers to get maximum dinero from what they do if I’m careless about what I do?
It’s my JOB to care about the customers who pay me money. It’s not my job to take care of the freeloaders. And while I do want them to benefit, if everyone was like them, this whole enterprise would be a waste of time. The paying customers get a lot more than the freeloaders. As well they should. You get what you pay for.
That’s pretty much what I was saying. It’s like you said, you care about what you do.
Perry, I totally relate to this post. Over the past four years, I’ve been learning what it means to ‘love unconditionally’ even on the internet.
As you know, the world you and I came from hammered home the point of not connecting with people. Put up barriers, make it hard to get to you, don’t show em too much.. I tried that and was miserable.
Now if the phone rings I take it more times than not. I don’t schedule my life into 15 minute increments.
When I go to lunch with a client, prospect or friend, I don’t have an agenda.
Understanding human beings is way more enjoyable than seeing them as a paycheck or someone to buy my stuff, so I can buy more stuff.
Being authentic and touched by the human life is a more enjoyable ride.
How can we move forward toward an economics of friendship?
-Patch Adams MD
The first healers were revered as spiritual beings who understood your relationship to nature, the world and others. Even the first physicians who used to make house calls and cured with just a handful of compounds along with good advice knew this idea. It is foolish to think we are just machines. As Edgar Cayce stated “Mind is the Builder”. If you have any doubts think about how your life was altered the last time you were in love, afraid or any other strong emotion. Suddenly you shift and your body becomes different reacting to the emotional state. Using this same approach can heal both mind and body.
That sterile white coat and impersonal, smarter-than-thou attitude always gave me the creeps as a child. And then, they caused you pain!
People who are ill need the caring, healing touch such as the doctor you describe provides. We need more docs like her, although I still find fault with the techniques of oncology — essentially “closing the barn door after the horse has escaped”.
The medical profession needs to be preaching the Gospel of Prevention of cancer, rather than endlessly seeking a “cure” they can patent. Ah, but there’s not enough money in prevention to interest them.
Thanks, Perry, for the encouraging story!
Hi Perry & staff thanks for the gift you all sent me the other day. It was a scanner that allows me to scan text images, and make them digital.
I haven’t use it yet but plan to. I was surprised and it pays to tell others about your service.
You’re welcome. Thanks for being a great customer!
Great write up Perry. This is they type of story people need to hear more often. I think the connection itself is far more powerful than any technology will ever be.
Perry,You are a damn good writer,all the best,Tom
Perry,
I am a Veterinarian and I cried with a client today when I had to explain to her young daughter why we had to put her dog down. That is what makes me so successful in my career. That I care and connect with my clients. It’s what they seek also – compassion, understanding and connection.
As a physician I can confirm what the oncologist said. Most students focus on the fancy test and new drugs and care very little about the patient.
Doctors make very little effort to know anything about their patients. Just a simple question of what do you do? Or where are you from? The main questions you ask anybody one is trying to meet and get to know.
For some doctors the word patient is never synonymous with friend. The word patient is more in par with acquaintance and less than a neighbor on the social scale.
It’s a pity.
I loved this story. Deep inside we are all emotional, though we pretend to take every decision in life rationally. The emotions are our anchor to happy or sad life, however we choose.
The problem is we often forget this basic thing.
Great post Perry! I’m a physical therapist who helps people with pain. I tell others I am not the most skilled therapist as there are many out there who have much more skill than I do. Yet, I typically get faster results and longer lasting results than most people. I’ve always believed this to be the case because I actually care about the patient and will listen to their problem.
You would be amazed how much pain relief a patient can get just be simply making eye contact with them and listening….really listening. Most doctors and physical therapists are too busy jotting notes or typing away to make eye contact…patients notice this.
Many times, i will spend the vast majority of a treatment just talking with a patient and do very little “treatment” and the patient feels great and comes back the next time feeling even better.
Great post!
There is another side to all this as well: not only does the practitioner help their patients, but gains themselves a more fulfilling life.
I have been discussing certain things with a friend, and all she can see is the mechanics of the problem – not the beauty held within. Remember that every leaf on every tree is unique, individual and once it has fallen will never be repeated. That is only the leaf of a tree, humans are rather more individual and have a lot more worth!
We are trained not to see the wonder of the world, the beauty in every living thing, and it is this that can make an ordinary life into one that is amazing. Caring for those things around us, and the people around us is just the beginning: and you know by now that is how I approach my life.
This is a really great article and I’m going to be sharing it around.
One thing that struck me came from looking at my own situation ~ My parents couldn’t afford to send me to University, nevermind medical school, which is where everyone (still years later) think I am suited for. I always had misgivings about becoming an MD though, even though that’s where my interests lead me strongest. That point about having the empathy programmed out of you while under pressure being trained in the science of using dangerous drugs/devices/surgeries that are mostly NOT “safe and effective” – spells out in clear terms one of those misgivings I always felt. Lack of money anyway aside, lol.
Still I praise the M.D.’s who don’t succumb to just becoming drug-pushing, cold, detached, do-it-for-the-money technologists – or are just too lazy or careless to keep improving themselves – who still remember the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath…
Having read hundreds of novels myself, I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Knoll’s idea. Novels also build your vocabulary & comprehension almost automatically. Provided they’re GOOD. :-)
Coming back to the main point: “…your #1 job is to be a student of PEOPLE.” ~ Thank you for that Perry; I’m saving that as a quote to reread regularly so I never lose sight of that in life.
Peace & Victory
Perry,
This story reminds me of Patch Adams. Look how much good, no greatness he delivered. And how much people loved him, yet he was still ridiculed. But that didn’t stop him. After dealing with a loved ones chronic illness for 13 years, I could rant about the medical industry for hours. But I won’t.
People need, and obviously are figuring out, that we are social creatures. We love to interact, feel loved and appreciated. Technology, money, cars, houses, etc. will never replace the human touch and the feeling of knowing someone cares about and loves you.
Keep bringing this great stuff to us. The people that don’t like this ‘mushy’ stuff, can go read something else.
Thanks again.
Stay in motion,
Dana
In the beginning, the internet and computers tended to attract geeks. Now a billion people use various iterations of computers and the internet to connect with people.
It’s almost like the day before television, computers and the internet .. you know, when people went to other people’s homes on Sunday afternoon to visit AKA socialize.
Great Post Perry. Thanks!
I have a doctor that use to take time to actually talk with you, not at you.
But since he got a palm pilot about 4 years he now very quickly consults the palm pilot, make the diagnosis,and prescribe a drug.
And no wonder if he pushes enough drugs he can take his entire staff to Hawaii for a week all expenses paid. Great benefit from him to his employees. Dennis
That was a motivational story, but it also makes me feel sad. There are a lot of medically sick people out there who see doctors that don’t seem to care. But, I think they do care…they just protect and hide their emotions…otherwise, the job would get to them.
Perry, thanks for the story!
Thanks Perry. It took me many years and a lot of work on myself to be able to listen properly to people. The result was epitomized by a woman in late middle age, who recently told for the first time ever, about being raped when a young girl. My brother in law took a year off medicine and worked physically, always read a lot of novels, and was a much better doctor for it.
Perry Marshall : “I think it’s fascinating that after 15 years of the Internet finding its way into every nook and cranny of modern life, its #1 job is connecting people with people.”
Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944) : “Transport du courrier, transport de la voix humaine, transport d’images scintillantes – dans ce siècle comme dans les autres, nos plus grands accomplissements ont pour seul but de relier les hommes.”
(“Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.”)
Isolation is death; communication is life.
Without forgetting the dark side of the Internet.
Last night I watched “Social Network”.
In 2003, Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) breaks up with Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). Back at his dorm, Mark writes a scathing, crudely demeaning blog entry about her, and in his drunken rage is inspired to create a website that rates the attractiveness of female students when compared to each other. (He goes on to create Facebook.)
Later, Zuckerberg tries to speak to Albright to get himself forgiven. Her retort made me think of so many anonymous posters:
“You write your snide bull-sh*t from a dark room because that’s what the angry do nowadays.”
There is so much to celebrate concerning … just how very far we have come…
This is the story of–NOT–someone struck with terminal cancer in the brain at a very young age … but in her senior years–approaching 40 years of marriage–someone who Traditional Societies never made investments in … until the advent of Medicare in 1965.
This woman had not only the investment of cancer care … but the even more meaningful investment to her situation–the gift to attend a beloved cultural event as part of an observance of a meaningful anniversary with her most significant of companions … when knowing that the time for such celebrations was almost up.
This story also illustrates that–Thank goodness … we have also come very far in … Understanding The Profound Difference Between Love … and lust.
Another outstanding post, containing real wisdom. Kelley Eidem – I’ll be buying that book. This modern disease needs to be defeated. William Lawson – well said; my suspicions precisely.
Thank you, Richard.
Readers have told me that The Doctor Who Cures Cancer the best book they have ever read on the topic.
Perry’s story is just as valid because it goes right to the heart of what is most important: caring and sharing.
Good point Perry. My wife is a doctor. When she was in Med school she often said the admissions committee was fond of people who were actually majoring in non-science subjects like philosophy, english, arts, etc… When thinking about marketing too, it sure helps if you understand the person you are marketing to!
Thanks for the Great Post, Perry.
I remember a Classical Homeopath — I think his name was Joel Shepard — up in Chicago years ago. His initial patient interviews, most of the time, lasted at least 3, sometimes up to 4.5 HOURS!!! He asked so many questions it isn’t funny, and he really got to know his patients at a MUCH deeper level than most doctors could ever hope to.
I’ve been a hands-on muscle & yoga therapist for about 30 years now, and I deal mostly with people who’ve been given up on by both orthodox AND alternative doctors & practitioners. For a number of reasons (including my above experiences with Joel), I do THREE HOUR (or longer) sessions with people, often doing 6 to 12 or more of these sessions with them.
When you spend THAT much time with your hands on people’s stresses & tensions, they start to learn how to RELAX their muscles. And if you start talking to them in a relaxed, friendly, personal, NON-technical way, their mind usually relaxes too; most of them, anyway. …
When that happens, they start telling you things. Things even THEY had not remembered for years. And very often, in more severe cases, it is there — stuff in the Deep Background they are not evening feeling or thinking about — you get the most important clues as to what is REALLY going on with them. (Kind of like what you talked about at the Austin Seminar and other writings.) Yet, I’ve had people receive ten or more sessions before remembering things like their car rolling off a cliff years prior, with them in it!!! .. Or being rolled over on by a horse! … The sub- and un-conscious can be as inaccessible as a steel safe!
So, with even the AMA Journal admitting that doctors seldom get past a few minutes before interrupting their patients and making conclusions, it is no wonder so many people are abandoning orthodox medicine. Most practitioners, orthodox and alternative both, never get enough of the REAL information they need to do the best job for their patients and Clients.
This is just one reason getting going on the internet has been so difficult for me, it seems so IM-personal. After 30 years of dealing 1on1 with people, or very small group seminars, it goes way against my natural tendencies. Yet as I write this, and think about what you’re saying, I’m wondering if I could beef up my copywriting in a way that evokes a reader’s own sense of going deeper into their own self? The idea is that if I can do that, maybe they’d experience a deeper sense of connection and commitment, moving them to be more interested in what I’m doing/saying, and then via reciprocity, more easily sign up???
Sounds so self-centered of me, does it not? :-))
But then … I remember reading in some copywriting manual to NOT try to teach or do therapy or whatever in your sales copy!?1?!?
But that’s the negative part of my mind speaking, I hope, and I have to get that the benefits go both ways. I just have to get over my fears of all that stuff. … MORE head trash!!!
Anyway, MY experience is that if you get away from the technical stuff FIRST, then get personal, once trust and common ground is found, then they get more personal and open up, then talking technical is far more on-point and they are far more able to assimilate it all, and they are more likely to COMPLY with the suggestions of the practitioner.
What more could you ask for? …
Or, whadda ya think about all that, Perry?
Thanks & Take Care,
David Scott Lynn
You can’t do therapy in a sales letter.
But you can do it in a blog or via email.
And writing can always be very personal, if you make it that way.
Do through your website what you do in person and people will be drawn to that.
Perry thanks for this post. It is so nice to receive such uplifting information. You truly inspire me and keep me going when I get tired. In every profession there are people who care about each other you just have to look for them. I am glad I have found you.
People don’t care how much you know
Until they know how much you care.
There is an old (British)English expression which is used to show one’s lack of interest for something:
“I couldn’t care less.”
In modern American English, that seems to have become the opposite:
“I could care less.”
I have often wondered why. Any theories?
I love Americans in general, but “I could care less” is just another example of the English language being chewed up by standard American culture and rendered into nonsensical foolishness – No offense meant. Another example would be, “I ain’t scared of nobody!” Lol, just teasing.
Seriously, I think it might stem from the falling quality of the U.S. educational system & falling individual literacy levels **in general** (for multiple reasons of course) that keeps being reported and evidenced in study after study and seen in everyday life. That’s my theory on that anyway…
I think this is simply because people have misunderstood the original expression.
Literally, caring “less” is only possible to a theoretical zero. So when your caring “could not be less”, it means zero-level of caring.
Yup, I pay $200 an hour out of my own pocket to see my Naturpathic Dr. Not only does she care about me, she happens to realize I’m pretty smart and well read on how my body works, and values my opinions on treatment protocols.
That’s pretty much priceless to someone with ongoing chronic auto-immune conditions.
You know, Perry,I’ve been reading your writing since you got online. A friend (of mine) who shared your Amway journey turned me on to your site. This is the side of you I really enjoy – the poignant story telling that comes so natural to you. Great post. :)
Damn right! They have had the empathy programmed out of them at med school. Mainly to stop them questioning why pharmaceutical drugs kill so many, yet never heal. And why things like cancer treatments haven’t progressed since the end of WW1 and deliberately (but thats another story).
I could give you also another story about an oncologist who got jailed for 3 years for giving “Unapproved cures” (yes you heard that right).
Anyway, I not here to hijack what this thread is about. Its a really nice story Perry and completely agree…its all about the people!! And its nourishment for the soul to go that extra mile, even if it gets you in ‘trouble’. Follow your heart! ;-)