How writing can change minds and make you a better physician [PODCAST]

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Meet the physician who has written multiple widely-shared articles on KevinMD. How does writing change minds and bring people together? Why is humor such an important part of her pieces? Explore how her articles come together, and why writing has made her a better physician.

Rada Jones is an emergency physician and can be reached at her self-titled site, RadaJonesMD, and on Twitter @jonesrada. She is the author of Overdose.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “How masks are like your underwear.”

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Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Today on the show we have Rada Jones. She is an emergency physician, and she is a longtime contributor to KevinMD. She recently wrote the article “How masks are like your underwear.” Rada, welcome to the show.

Rada Jones: Thank you. It’s wonderful to be here, Kevin.

Kevin Pho: So we’ll get into your article in a little bit, but first off, can you just share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Rada Jones: Sure, I’d be glad to. So I was born in communist Romania, and I lived there until I was 37, and then I immigrated to the United States. I went to medical school in my late 30s, almost 40s, so I have a slightly different perspective than many other people. And then I started writing not too long ago, and there I am.

Kevin Pho: So tell me some of the articles that you’ve written on KevinMD. They’ve gotten a lot of traction. What kind of articles do you normally contribute, and what kind of topics do you normally write about?

Rada Jones: To be honest with you, I usually write about the things that make me angry. I find anger and frustration to be a very powerful force to make you be more evocative and express your feelings. So I often write about things that I am struggling with, but I try to write about them in an amusing way, because I think laughter makes everything go through a little bit easier and a little bit faster.

I write a lot about the medical system in the United States, which I think has a lot of room for improvement. I write about issues like, for example, the article about masks, which is of course something quite timely. I write about my personal experiences as a doctor, and find a way to communicate things that are affecting all of us but that we very seldom get to talk about, and that people who are outside medicine often are not aware of.

Kevin Pho: So one of the things that you mentioned is that you write about topics that you feel angry about, things that get you frustrated while practicing medicine, especially in the emergency department. Now, what are some examples of some issues that you find frustrating today?

Rada Jones: There are a lot of them. I think one of the things that I truly find very sad is the importance of money in medicine. I know that’s probably a rather naive perspective, because everything costs money, but it’s sad that everything is determined by the amount of money: the treatments, the staffing, the way we deal with patients, the time we have for them. I think that’s very sad.

I think also a lot of our patients would benefit from better education. I think they would have a better life and a better experience with us in the emergency department if they knew a little bit more about us.

Kevin Pho: You have a platform here where patients are listening to you. Now, what are some of the issues that you wish to communicate to some of the patients that you may see in the emergency department?

Rada Jones: First of all, I think that the very best thing for patients is to not get there unless they must. For example, a lot of the things that bring people to the emergency department are unwise choices. So I think people would be healthier and happier if they made better choices in their everyday life.

Kevin Pho: And there’s an article pretty much about that that you have published.

Rada Jones: I believe it’s something like 49 ways to keep you away from the emergency department, which a lot of my friends, non-medical friends, read. And yeah, “I did number 30, 47,” and “My father-in-law, 13. I’ve got to send that to him.” Some of them are silly things, like, for example, do not fry bacon naked. Another one, do not start your chainsaw holding it between your knees, and stuff like that, not just kind of common-sense things that would help.

Kevin Pho: Now, when you come up with ideas for your articles, do you keep a running list of topics to write about and stories that you see in the emergency room? How do these articles come together?

Rada Jones: Usually I just read something, or something happens, and I just say, “Ah, this is something that I truly feel strongly about, and I better sit down and write it before it’s too late.” And some of them actually become articles, and some of them are just catharsis, and I feel better that I put them down.

Kevin Pho: Now, a lot of your articles have gotten a lot of traction. Some of them have gotten tens of thousands of shares after being published on KevinMD. What are some of the responses that you’ve received personally from the publicity that your articles have garnered?

Rada Jones: Most of them have been positive, and most people found them funny. Some people felt offended, and it’s probably the people who were guilty of having done some of those things I suggested that they shouldn’t do. But for the most part, people thought it was a good one.

Kevin Pho: All right, so let’s talk about one of those KevinMD articles, “How masks are like your underwear.” Now, you wrote this article back in August. For those who haven’t read your article, can you just walk my audience through it and maybe share the story of why you decided to write it?

Rada Jones: Yeah. I thought it’s so hard to understand why people get so passionate about the issues of masks. I mean, they’re just a piece of cloth that you put between you and danger, or between you and endangering other people. It didn’t look to me like they are a great deal, but a lot of people think they are. So I try to demystify them and make them ordinary and unimpressive and even funny, to make it easier for people to look at them. For example, don’t share them, don’t remove them unless you’re both tested, don’t visit your grandma without them. So my whole intent with that was to make it less of a political statement and more of a really easy, cheap tool for people to protect themselves and those they care about.

Kevin Pho: Now, when you published this article, masks, as you said, were very politicized in the United States. Now, did you get a lot of positive and negative response to an article like this?

Rada Jones: To be honest, I mostly got positive responses, because I tried very hard to not make it a big deal. But some people got extraordinarily upset, and interestingly enough, it’s usually the people on the side of wearing masks who told me that it is completely stupid: “If you write something like that, you are an idiot. You should just tell them to wear the masks. That’s it.” It’s like, everybody who doesn’t wear their masks, they don’t. How would my particular voice help, telling them what to do? But a lot of people got very upset.

Kevin Pho: A lot of your articles are laced with satire, they’re laced with humor. Now, how do you inject humor? How do you think humor can help change minds?

Rada Jones: People become defenseless when they laugh. When you make somebody laugh, they will open up, and they will be more willing to listen. I mean, it’s very hard for all of us to listen when somebody shouts at us, or somebody is rude to us, or somebody tells us what to do. But when somebody makes us laugh, that’s good. That makes us feel good, and it makes us more likely to listen. It’s like the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Rada Jones. She’s an emergency physician. She’s a longtime KevinMD contributor. One of the articles that she’s published is “How masks are like your underwear.” Now, Rada, over the last nine months of the pandemic, is there something that you’ve learned during that time that you wish you knew back before the pandemic started?

Rada Jones: I am still struggling to understand how this extraordinary catastrophe divided us. It’s like, through the history of our lives and of humanity, catastrophes usually bring people together. It’s like nobody speaks badly about the dead at a funeral, even if they hated them. But for some reason, this pandemic just divided us so much that it added so much suffering and pain and distrust to what was already a difficult situation. And I still struggle to understand what that was about, and I wish there was a way to help with that, but I haven’t quite figured that out.

Kevin Pho: Now, if you were in charge, how do you propose to bring people together, perhaps through your writing? What are some ideas that you have for that?

Rada Jones: I think the most important thing is that we need to remember the things that unite us, as opposed to the things that divide us. I mean, we all want to be well and want to be happy and want those around us to be well and happy. We may disagree about the way to make it happen, but I think once we can recognize our common purpose and our common values, I mean, we all want joy and happiness and long life and health, I think we may be able to communicate. But right now, it looks like the world is a very divided place. I truly hope that after the election, whichever way they go, we are going to be able to move on and find a way to get together.

Kevin Pho: Now, as I mentioned before, your articles get a lot of traction on social media, and they’re widely shared. Now, for those physicians who are interested in getting more into writing, do you have any tips or advice for those clinicians?

Rada Jones: Oh, yes, I do. I think writing is a wonderful thing. I try to do my meditation; I cannot, because I need to keep moving all the time. I try to do yoga; I can’t, everything hurts, and things do not bend like they should. But writing I can do. I can sit down, and I can look inside myself and bring out the things that are important, and that makes me extraordinarily happy.

So I think doctors especially, who have such a richness of experience they gather from their patients, I mean, who else has the opportunity to hear everything about their patients, from their bowel movements to the history of their grandparents? I think we should really sit down and write, and there’s never been a better time. There are so many places that you can publish yourself. There’s Facebook, there’s all the social media, and I think we are obligated to bring our voice, to share the things that we think people need to know. I hope they do.

Kevin Pho: And what are some specific ways that writing has changed you as a physician?

Rada Jones: I think one of the things is it made me more sympathetic to my patients. You know, when you’re working in the emergency department, that’s not really a comforting place to be, and it’s not comforting for the patients, but really, it’s not that comforting for the staff either. People are busy, and they are hungry, and they don’t even get to go to the bathroom, and there is a fatigue of compassion at some point in time. It’s very hard, and some days you may feel sicker than your patients, whether you are or not. That’s an addiction.

So when you sit home and reflect on them, you’re getting an opportunity to actually put yourself inside those shoes and realize how justified and how normal it is for them to react the way they reacted. And I believe that my being inside my patient’s soul made me a better doctor, at least a more patient doctor.

Kevin Pho: And my final question, Rada: What is your take-home message that you want to leave with my audience?

Rada Jones: I think there’s one thing that I want to tell people, which is that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. This is my fifth career. Writing is my fifth career; medicine was my fourth. I used to be an engineer, I used to be a play therapist, I was a translator, and I did all sorts of other things. But everything that I did made me richer inside and happier, and it was actually not that hard. So I think if you’re not happy with where you are in your life, but with your career, it’s worth investing in trying to get where you want to be, and it’s never too late.

Kevin Pho: Rada, thank you so much for sharing your stories and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Rada Jones: Thank you very much for allowing me to speak to you.

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