Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Tackling Medical Misinformation with Ashley Alker, MD, M.Sc., Emergency Medicine Physician and Author

Transcript

Tackling Medical Misinformation with Ashley Alker, MD, M.Sc., Emergency Medicine Physician and Author · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Molly
• 0:02
  Gamble with Becker's. And today, I'm sitting down
• 0:04
  with doctor Ashley Elker. Doctor Elker is an
• 0:07
  emergency medicine physician and author. Doctor Elker, it's
• 0:10
  really great to be joined by you today.
• 0:11
  I'm looking forward to learning from you in
• 0:13
  our conversation.
• 0:14
  Thanks so much for having me, Molly.
• 0:16
  You have a really interesting career, and we're
• 0:19
  gonna start talking about Meaningful Media.
• 0:22
  This is a nonprofit
• 0:23
  that you founded that looks to connect the
• 0:26
  public health experts out there with different creators
• 0:30
  to fight medical misinformation, which has just been
• 0:32
  such an intensifying problem,
• 0:34
  really, ever since COVID nineteen.
• 0:37
  Let's talk about the origins of this idea.
• 0:39
  What what what sparked the idea of meaningful
• 0:41
  media for you, and what kind of impact
• 0:44
  are you looking to to have in the
• 0:46
  stories that you're telling?
• 0:48
  Yeah. No problem. This is a, you know,
• 0:50
  a great place to start. So what sparked
• 0:52
  the idea was actually the pandemic,
• 0:55
  and also created the necessity, I think. So
• 0:58
  the amount of life altering medical misinformation that's
• 1:01
  out there, especially, you know, in times of
• 1:03
  crisis,
• 1:05
  is overwhelming. So it's really hard for people
• 1:07
  to
• 1:08
  sift through this information and find the truths.
• 1:11
  And AI is making this even more, you
• 1:13
  know, confusing.
• 1:14
  I could see how far during the pandemic
• 1:17
  we were behind the ball on public health
• 1:20
  communication practices.
• 1:22
  So that's kind of where I decided, you
• 1:24
  know, to start Meaningful Media as I saw
• 1:26
  a a gap in the way we were
• 1:28
  educating the public and an opportunity to help.
• 1:31
  The people creating the messaging, I find often
• 1:34
  are not and successful in creating the messaging
• 1:36
  is are often not the people who have
• 1:39
  necessarily the health care background. You know, they're
• 1:41
  people who are influencers or have a lot
• 1:43
  of followers
• 1:44
  or sometimes just people who find new sensationalized
• 1:47
  information.
• 1:48
  So these aren't necessarily the people that can,
• 1:51
  dig through the information and find the truths.
• 1:53
  It's not where you should be getting your
• 1:55
  health information from.
• 1:56
  And on top of that, MIT did a
• 1:59
  study on this, but lies are very captivating.
• 2:02
  Mhmm. And this is just a universal truth.
• 2:06
  And especially when the truth is we don't
• 2:08
  know,
• 2:09
  that's not very helpful and people don't, you
• 2:11
  know, that's not gonna get you to click.
• 2:14
  So I the study MIT looked at basically
• 2:17
  showed that misinformation
• 2:18
  online, specifically on, what was on Twitter, I
• 2:21
  believe, travels six times faster faster than any
• 2:24
  factual news. So, you know, you're fighting an
• 2:26
  uphill battle here.
• 2:28
  And it's a a role that I enjoyed
• 2:30
  in the past,
• 2:31
  in a more like, you
• 2:33
  know, less dire time,
• 2:35
  before the pandemic. I, you know, did a
• 2:37
  lot of stuff for television and film. I
• 2:39
  did a lot of article writing for newspapers
• 2:41
  and working with very various sects of the
• 2:44
  TED organization.
• 2:46
  But, you know, this was different.
• 2:48
  So I did get on social media during
• 2:50
  the pandemic and tried to help fight information
• 2:52
  in
• 2:54
  online. But to be honest with you, I
• 2:55
  just I really dislike social media.
• 2:58
  So it's not something that I enjoyed doing.
• 3:00
  But in 2022,
• 3:02
  I, you know, found something that I do
• 3:04
  really enjoy doing that could help the situation,
• 3:06
  and that was creating meaningful media, which is
• 3:08
  basically a nonprofit organization that connects the creators
• 3:11
  with the public health experts in order to
• 3:13
  develop a scientifically
• 3:14
  accurate message.
• 3:16
  So it's just an opportunity to get the
• 3:18
  right information out there and to establish those
• 3:20
  relationships.
• 3:22
  The, you know, organization also tries to promote
• 3:24
  the people doing it right. So those are,
• 3:26
  you know, online health influencers that are fighting
• 3:28
  misinformation,
• 3:29
  as well as helping connect creators, whether they
• 3:32
  be novelists or journalists,
• 3:34
  screenwriters, artists with responsible and educated information through
• 3:37
  health professionals.
• 3:39
  And then lastly, as far as, like, my
• 3:41
  my role in TV and film, I you
• 3:43
  know, it's probably had a modest effect. I'm
• 3:45
  one person,
• 3:47
  and it wasn't a full time job. But
• 3:49
  I think that,
• 3:51
  you know, with something like meaningful media across
• 3:53
  multiple mediums with multiple different people in multiple
• 3:57
  different fields, fighting misinformation,
• 3:59
  I think that is much more likely to
• 4:01
  be impactful.
• 4:03
  Mhmm. Mhmm. I mean, what a what a
• 4:05
  precise
• 4:06
  and very clear need,
• 4:09
  for this company to be to be advising
• 4:11
  the creators with accurate medical information
• 4:14
  to ensure that this misinformation
• 4:16
  isn't furthered. And as you're talking about this,
• 4:19
  doctor Alker, I mean, I think medical misinformation,
• 4:22
  sometimes it seems as though it's it's a
• 4:24
  really complicated thing. I think you just hit
• 4:26
  on a few reasons it can be so
• 4:28
  nefarious. Number one, it's oversimplification.
• 4:30
  There's just no nuance. I remember on the
• 4:32
  journalism side, like, headlines about studies have always
• 4:35
  been really tricky. The medical misinformation is like
• 4:37
  that times 10 in many ways. It's there's
• 4:39
  this captivation. It's really easy to repeat and
• 4:42
  to further.
• 4:43
  Are there any other nuances when it comes
• 4:44
  to misinformation that you think our listeners should
• 4:46
  keep in mind? Because sometimes,
• 4:48
  it can seem like it's just a matter
• 4:50
  of knowing better. I find that it's a
• 4:52
  way bigger social phenomenon
• 4:54
  than that.
• 4:55
  Yeah. I mean, I completely agree with you.
• 4:57
  It it is
• 4:58
  it's a big problem because it's so nuanced.
• 5:01
  And I think that it's getting even more
• 5:03
  dangerous with AI and deepfakes. And,
• 5:06
  you know, it basically
• 5:07
  is an issue
• 5:09
  that we've had for a long time. But
• 5:11
  when you were talking about, you know, what
• 5:13
  what makeup to you was and clothing brands,
• 5:15
  it wasn't as big of a deal. But
• 5:17
  when you're talking about health information, this is
• 5:20
  a difference between life and death in some
• 5:21
  situations. So it becomes something that, is very
• 5:25
  important and needs to be, you know, looked
• 5:27
  at by the people
• 5:29
  who,
• 5:29
  you know, should be creating health information.
• 5:32
  Our
• 5:33
  universities, our governmental organizations,
• 5:36
  you know, those types of places is where
• 5:38
  this information should be coming from because they
• 5:40
  have a responsibility
• 5:41
  and they have
• 5:43
  kind you know, as trusted organizations and as
• 5:45
  people that are giving out health information officially,
• 5:49
  they have a responsibility.
• 5:50
  So, you know, one of the things I
• 5:52
  always think about is when you're online and
• 5:53
  some influencer tells you to take, you know,
• 5:56
  hydroxychloroquine
• 5:57
  for COVID or whatever it might be, that
• 6:00
  person has very little responsibility
• 6:02
  in telling you truth or lies. They can,
• 6:04
  you know, repost something and be like, well,
• 6:06
  I didn't know.
• 6:07
  A doctor online who's credentialed, and this has
• 6:10
  happened before, giving you misinformation,
• 6:12
  they have a responsibility there and can can
• 6:16
  be, you know, found guilty of a crime
• 6:18
  if someone, you know, gets hurt from that
• 6:20
  information.
• 6:21
  There's some there's some culpability there is my
• 6:24
  point. So not that I think anyone should
• 6:26
  be getting their health information on the Internet.
• 6:28
  I think it's a very dangerous place to
• 6:30
  get health information and everyone should do their
• 6:32
  best to try in a very difficult system.
• 6:34
  I understand that. But, you know, do their
• 6:36
  best to try to get a public public
• 6:38
  health professional,
• 6:39
  in most cases, a primary care doctor who
• 6:41
  they can trust where they can get their
• 6:42
  information from.
• 6:44
  You know, if you are gonna look for
• 6:46
  something online, I think that's one of the
• 6:48
  ways
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  to the the the very first tier of
• 6:51
  how to screen is, you know, who is
• 6:53
  this person?
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  What are they talking about? What is their
• 6:57
  expertise? You know, they they teach you this
• 6:58
  stuff when, you know, in public health when
• 7:00
  you're reviewing articles or in medicine when you're
• 7:02
  reviewing articles.
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  It's one of the, like, very first kind
• 7:05
  of easy things you can look at.
• 7:08
  Sure. Sure. No. Thanks for I think I
• 7:10
  appreciate the state. So this is really important.
• 7:12
  And and meaningful media, it sounds like in
• 7:14
  many ways, it solves a distinct need, but
• 7:16
  it also sounds like it's been a labor
• 7:17
  of love for you. But you've you've consulted
• 7:19
  on some some pretty big shows, Handmaid's Tale,
• 7:23
  Station 19, The Act. Can you can you
• 7:25
  share more about
• 7:27
  who you've advised? And then I think in
• 7:28
  addition to that, any behind the scenes moments
• 7:31
  of this work that maybe you can share
• 7:33
  with our listeners that have really stuck with
• 7:35
  you?
• 7:36
  Yeah. I mean, I just feel grateful and
• 7:39
  lucky that producers and screenwriters and actors and
• 7:42
  anyone who invest the time and effort to
• 7:44
  get the medicine right, I'm very grateful for
• 7:46
  these people because they have a lot of
• 7:49
  power.
• 7:50
  And I think that it's easy when you're
• 7:52
  an entertainer sometimes to ignore that because it's
• 7:54
  not technically your job. So
• 7:57
  the people that I've advised
• 7:58
  yeah. It's, you know, it's a long list
• 8:00
  of people, but there and there a lot
• 8:02
  of these people maybe you wouldn't necessarily recognize
• 8:04
  their names because they're screenwriters or producers. So
• 8:07
  people in,
• 8:08
  you know, Hollywood
• 8:10
  might know who they are. But,
• 8:12
  regardless of, you know, how celebrated the name
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  might be, they're all really
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  special individuals who understand, you know, there was
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  both the responsibility and the opportunity that they
• 8:21
  have to use television and film for passive
• 8:24
  education.
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  One person that I worked with on a
• 8:27
  show, The Purge,
• 8:29
  which doesn't seem like a medical
• 8:32
  show. But that's the other thing is that
• 8:33
  most people are like, oh, have you worked
• 8:35
  on, you know, you know, this medical show?
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  And most of the things that I've worked
• 8:39
  on in the past actually weren't medical shows.
• 8:40
  It was just medical components of, you know,
• 8:43
  television shows or films. But, anyways, I worked
• 8:46
  with Derek Luke on that project and he
• 8:47
  was, you know, phenomenal and obviously a great
• 8:50
  actor who really cared about the role and,
• 8:53
  his depiction of an emergency medicine physician.
• 8:56
  I got to work with JJ Abrams, which
• 8:58
  was, you know, mind blowing and he's obviously
• 9:00
  a genius.
• 9:02
  And in that same team was Kiara Snyder
• 9:04
  and Far,
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  Shariat who were both, like, you know, just
• 9:07
  amazing people. So, you know, I'm just honored
• 9:09
  to be able to have these conversations with
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  these people who have clearly,
• 9:13
  understood their opportunity to kind of help move
• 9:17
  public health forward because, you know, most people
• 9:19
  watch TV. And so it's a great opportunity
• 9:21
  to, you know, get some passive education in.
• 9:24
  If you see they've actually done studies on
• 9:26
  this that if you see CPR done correctly
• 9:28
  on television, you're more likely to do it
• 9:30
  accurately.
• 9:31
  You know, everyone including the patient obviously prefers
• 9:33
  we take CPR classes.
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  You know, the general public and physicians hopefully
• 9:39
  all know how to do CPR.
• 9:41
  But my point being is that it's a
• 9:43
  passive education opportunity.
• 9:45
  And then, you know, that's also I think
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  we kind of ignore the power of stories
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  often. Mhmm. And that's how, you know, we
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  pass down a lot of health information. And
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  so television has both, like, a responsibility and
• 9:57
  an opportunity to do that. You know, how
• 9:59
  many times have you heard patients tell you
• 10:01
  things that you're like, no, that's just on
• 10:03
  television. Patients are always like, oh, can my
• 10:05
  kid sleep after, you know, his mild concussion?
• 10:07
  He got hit in the head with a
• 10:08
  ball. I'm like, yes. Thank you nineties television
• 10:11
  for telling everyone you can't sleep after a
• 10:13
  concussion. You need to sleep.
• 10:14
  And that probably comes from, like, you know,
• 10:16
  q two hour neurochecks with somebody with, like,
• 10:19
  an interparenchymal hemorrhage that's in the ICU. It
• 10:21
  it comes from a place of science, but
• 10:23
  it's been misused. And so though those are
• 10:26
  the types of opportunities we have.
• 10:28
  Love that. When you're talking about storytelling,
• 10:31
  I mean, you transcend different mediums because you
• 10:33
  you also have a book, 99 ways to
• 10:36
  die, which is quite the title. And this
• 10:38
  is a book that comes from your time
• 10:41
  in the ER. It started off, if I'm
• 10:43
  correct, as journal entries. Right? And you started
• 10:46
  reflecting and recording some of these observations that
• 10:48
  you were having practicing in the ER.
• 10:51
  Describe the book for us and what it's
• 10:53
  about, and what made you wanna share these
• 10:55
  stories with an audience.
• 10:58
  Yeah. I mean, the book is, there are
• 11:00
  stories in the book, but I think it's
• 11:02
  balance a balance between stories and information.
• 11:05
  And for the, you know, medical professionals, I
• 11:08
  think that maybe parts of the book that
• 11:09
  that are more interesting are the social, historical,
• 11:12
  political components of diseases,
• 11:15
  aside from, you know, the the science. You
• 11:18
  know, a lot of doctors will know the
• 11:19
  science already. This book was written for everyone
• 11:21
  to understand and not just for medical professionals.
• 11:24
  But I think there is an interesting opportunity
• 11:26
  in this book to connect with my, you
• 11:28
  know, fellow physicians and medical professionals
• 11:30
  in the emergency department, but also in a
• 11:32
  lot of other fields,
• 11:34
  because, you know, there's certain things in medicine,
• 11:37
  that
• 11:38
  are kind of shared experiences. And so those
• 11:42
  things are in this book. And I do
• 11:44
  use stories,
• 11:46
  that were based on things that have happened,
• 11:48
  but of course, you know, so much has
• 11:49
  been changed to protect patient,
• 11:52
  identity that, you know, at at this point,
• 11:55
  the story is no longer the, you know,
• 11:58
  the tortoise and the hare. It's the
• 12:00
  sloth and the road runner, but the message
• 12:03
  is the same in the story and and
• 12:05
  that is slow and steady wins the race.
• 12:07
  So the point being is that the stories
• 12:09
  were an important way
• 12:12
  to allow people to remember the information.
• 12:14
  You know? Mhmm. An an example that I
• 12:16
  always use that I think is really poignant
• 12:18
  is Alexander,
• 12:20
  Alexander Hamilton wrote 51 of the 85 Federalist
• 12:23
  Papers, but nobody knew that or remembered that.
• 12:26
  But then Lin Manuel created this captivating musical
• 12:29
  about it. And now everyone can tell you
• 12:31
  where Hamilton was born, his political affiliations, his
• 12:34
  contributions to the constitution, his wife's name, complete
• 12:37
  biography. Right? And that's the genius of art,
• 12:40
  is that we can use things like storytelling,
• 12:43
  to really create something that people can remember
• 12:46
  even though maybe it's not something that they
• 12:48
  studied for fifteen years.
• 12:50
  And, you know, speaking of storytelling,
• 12:52
  one other format of storytelling that you have
• 12:54
  mastered is your your book, 99 Ways to
• 12:57
  Die.
• 12:58
  A a title that is surely a standout
• 13:00
  if I were to come across it on
• 13:02
  the shelves, Ashley.
• 13:03
  Can you talk about this a little bit?
• 13:05
  My understanding, it started off as journal entries
• 13:07
  from your time practicing in the ER.
• 13:11
  What are are those journal entries? What is
• 13:13
  the book about? And then what made you
• 13:15
  wanna share these stories publicly?
• 13:18
  So the book is kind of a collection
• 13:21
  of stories and then also some, you know,
• 13:22
  nonfiction information. It's
• 13:24
  described as an illuminating, hilarious, and practical guide
• 13:27
  to 99 of the most terrifying ways to
• 13:30
  die and how to avoid them.
• 13:31
  But I think the book also kind of
• 13:34
  takes a different perspective by looking at the
• 13:35
  social and historical aspects of diseases
• 13:38
  and covers them in a very specific way,
• 13:41
  everything from leprosy to serial killers, and does
• 13:43
  it in very succinct chapters so you can
• 13:46
  kinda pick it up, put it down. And
• 13:47
  it's written for, you know, the mentality of
• 13:50
  today, which is, you know, the fifteen second
• 13:52
  news cycle. So I tried to use all
• 13:54
  of the things and communication skills I've learned
• 13:56
  to write something that is, you know, both
• 13:59
  engaging, captivating,
• 14:01
  and really accessible.
• 14:02
  But I think that, people in public health
• 14:04
  and people in different aspects of medicine will
• 14:07
  also find it, you know, really interesting because
• 14:09
  there are those social historical aspects of the
• 14:11
  diseases. And, you know, there are diseases and
• 14:13
  things in there that we don't deal with
• 14:15
  a lot like leprosy.
• 14:17
  Mhmm. Mhmm. And, actually, for those of us
• 14:19
  who didn't go to medical school, I think
• 14:20
  the historical piece of those different conditions or
• 14:23
  diseases or causes of mortality,
• 14:26
  sometimes aren't always most top of mind for
• 14:28
  anyone.
• 14:29
  Yeah. And I think there's there's a lot
• 14:31
  of, historical pieces that would interest a lot
• 14:33
  of people and that we can learn from.
• 14:35
  For instance, with leprosy,
• 14:36
  people often don't realize that it was actually
• 14:39
  fairly recently that the last leprosy colony in
• 14:41
  The United States closed, which was in, Hawaii.
• 14:45
  And that, you know, these colonies created their
• 14:47
  own, you know, types of ledger. They had
• 14:50
  their own coins. They had their own because
• 14:52
  they were cut off from society, they basically
• 14:54
  created their own societies. So these were, you
• 14:56
  know, microcosms within,
• 14:59
  you know, our culture. So it was a
• 15:00
  very interesting subculture and and that's something that
• 15:02
  I talk talk about in the book and
• 15:04
  something that I think happens in the world
• 15:06
  around us that we don't even know. A
• 15:07
  lot of people that I've spoken to are
• 15:09
  like, oh, I didn't know that leprosy
• 15:11
  exists anymore and it exists in, you know,
• 15:13
  something like a 120 come countries still. So
• 15:16
  this is something that is still going on.
• 15:19
  Very much so. I'm I'm one other person
• 15:20
  that wasn't aware of that. So,
• 15:23
  thanks for expanding on that one example. And
• 15:25
  a big part of art, which I think
• 15:27
  you certainly have thoughts on it, is humor.
• 15:29
  And there's so much about health care and
• 15:31
  medicine that is just
• 15:33
  humorless.
• 15:34
  There's not much humor to be found, but
• 15:36
  in the ER
• 15:38
  is particularly there's this perspective where you you
• 15:40
  talk about humor as a survival tool.
• 15:43
  That's a a really powerful perspective.
• 15:46
  How do you lean on humor
• 15:48
  or view humor in your communications toolkit to
• 15:50
  really help
• 15:52
  both you, but also your patients in these
• 15:54
  high stress situations? And then, also, is it
• 15:57
  a tool when you're educating
• 15:58
  people about serious health topics?
• 16:01
  Yeah. I think that's a really,
• 16:03
  good way to think about it, is that
• 16:04
  humor can be something that you use,
• 16:07
  as a tool to educate.
• 16:08
  And I think that it's a really important
• 16:11
  tool because it's very, you know, difficult when
• 16:13
  your fight or flight kicks in and you're
• 16:16
  pumping adrenaline
• 16:17
  through your veins and arteries to learn something.
• 16:20
  It's difficult to do simple math at that
• 16:22
  time, let alone, you know, learn about a
• 16:24
  new complicated disease process that could be killing
• 16:26
  you.
• 16:27
  So I often use humor in my own
• 16:29
  life to deal with those types of situations.
• 16:31
  And for patients, I really follow their lead.
• 16:34
  So I use what works for them. But
• 16:35
  in the emergency department, when everything
• 16:38
  feels like it's on fire in the world
• 16:39
  around you and we're just trying to get
• 16:41
  through things together, I found that a lot
• 16:43
  of my patients kind of approach
• 16:46
  some things, you know, some some types of
• 16:48
  emergencies with humor. I mean, patients,
• 16:51
  they're brave and thoughtful and often funny and
• 16:53
  it's not unfrequent that patients will tell me,
• 16:55
  you know, jokes and sometimes they're not very
• 16:57
  good, but I appreciate it anyways,
• 17:00
  because it's a thought that counts. But also,
• 17:02
  it's it's a coping mechanism that we and
• 17:04
  the emergency department really
• 17:06
  relate to, you know. And Mhmm. A lot
• 17:08
  of times, you know, not every emergency is
• 17:10
  a heart attack or a stroke or, you
• 17:14
  know, an aortic dissection or something where we're
• 17:16
  like, okay, there's no time for there's no
• 17:18
  time for talking, let alone jokes. But, you
• 17:21
  know, there are people who come in with
• 17:22
  terminal diseases or chronic pain or diagnoses that
• 17:25
  we just cannot figure out and medicine hasn't
• 17:28
  given them answers yet. And sometimes
• 17:30
  on on really bad days, humor is all
• 17:32
  these people have. You know, so it depends
• 17:35
  on the patient, obviously.
• 17:36
  But if, you know, if we get lucky
• 17:38
  and we both find something
• 17:40
  funny or ironic or whatever it is, I
• 17:43
  often find myself laughing with patients,
• 17:45
  about hard things that sometimes we just can't
• 17:48
  fix.
• 17:48
  Yeah. And it's it's such a a powerful
• 17:51
  way to connect with people, especially if there's,
• 17:53
  you know, power differentials or, you know, you're
• 17:56
  in one position,
• 17:58
  as a physician and they're obviously not. So
• 18:00
  I think there's just a lot of connective
• 18:02
  tissue can be built through humor too, it
• 18:04
  sounds like. And and finally, as we wind
• 18:06
  down here, I I wanted to think about
• 18:08
  the physicians
• 18:10
  and young physicians who are listening, doctor Elker.
• 18:13
  They might hear you about all these creative
• 18:16
  and communication
• 18:17
  focused pursuits
• 18:18
  in addition to your background in medicine and
• 18:20
  your practice in medicine and be interested in
• 18:23
  getting involved, whether it's writing, media, advising.
• 18:26
  What guidance would you share with them about
• 18:29
  using storytelling as a way to to further
• 18:31
  trust and then maybe even, you know, save
• 18:34
  lives beyond
• 18:35
  hospital walls? And any firsthand lessons you could
• 18:38
  share with listeners who listening to what you're
• 18:41
  saying and they're very inspired and considering similar
• 18:43
  pursuits?
• 18:45
  Yeah. Of course. I you know, there's there's
• 18:48
  a million opportunities out there, obviously. There's always
• 18:50
  opportunities to write,
• 18:52
  online, get involved, op eds.
• 18:55
  There are many programs if you're, you know,
• 18:57
  just starting out and you don't feel like
• 18:58
  you have the skills. There's communication programs specifically
• 19:01
  for physicians that sometimes
• 19:03
  at schools of public health now. So there
• 19:05
  there are educational opportunities. And then for those
• 19:08
  that feel like they're ready, there's a lot
• 19:09
  of opportunities to become kind of a a
• 19:12
  voice in public health in your community.
• 19:15
  And then additionally,
• 19:16
  mymeaningfulmedia.org,
• 19:19
  you can always go to my website online
• 19:21
  for my nonprofit and sign up there, and
• 19:23
  I will try and connect you with anybody
• 19:25
  who writes in who's looking for somebody in
• 19:27
  your specialty and field.
• 19:29
  And then what you do with that, is
• 19:30
  kind of up to you and and, you
• 19:32
  know, the creator you're connected to. And then,
• 19:35
  you know, just try it. Try storytelling. You
• 19:37
  never know,
• 19:39
  you know, what lives you might save with
• 19:41
  the information
• 19:42
  that you have, even with your patients
• 19:45
  on the day to day. I sometimes use
• 19:47
  analogies and stories
• 19:49
  to teach my patients,
• 19:51
  because it's kinda like you said, it can
• 19:53
  be an equalizing thing. It it shows that
• 19:55
  you understand,
• 19:57
  you know, the areas that might be more
• 19:58
  difficult for them to understand. And and it
• 20:00
  might even let them
• 20:02
  share different things with you and kind of
• 20:04
  make different connections and open up about things
• 20:06
  that they might not understand. So it doesn't
• 20:08
  have to be done in a way that's
• 20:11
  as public as, you know, working for television
• 20:13
  or writing an article or doing a podcast.
• 20:16
  It can it can be something that you
• 20:18
  use in your day to day with your
• 20:19
  patients.
• 20:20
  Mhmm. Mhmm.
• 20:21
  Excellent. Well, doctor Ashley Alker, again, listeners, doctor
• 20:24
  Alker is emergency medicine physician and author. The
• 20:27
  book is 99 ways to die and the
• 20:29
  nonprofit organization
• 20:31
  Advising
• 20:32
  Creators is Meaningful Media. Doctor Alker, thank you
• 20:35
  so much for being our guest on the
• 20:36
  Becker's Healthcare podcast.
• 20:38
  A lot of interesting work you're heading up,
• 20:40
  and I I wish you continued success.
• 20:42
  Thank you so much, and I hope that,
• 20:44
  people get out there to check out the
• 20:46
  book, and I hope they really enjoy it.