The Gift of Tone

Oftentimes, I feel like we are at odds with one another. Doctors and patients. Parents and kids. Experts and the naïve. In every direction, underlying the dynamic of one person trying to help another there often seems to be a tone of disinterest, disdain, or even distrust—which makes absolutely no sense if the idea is to help each other.     

I have always felt this in the world of pediatrics, but maybe that’s because I came of age as a doctor just as Andrew Wakefield and his cult of vaccine skepticism first emerged. When I started out in medical school, I envisioned my role as a doctor going something like this: I work my butt off to learn a bunch of stuff that I can pass along to people who didn’t learn all that stuff so that they could live healthier, safer lives. The way it actually went, from day one working in hospitals and clinics, was this: people were psyched to get my information until it bumped up against something in their world – a belief or an experience – and then suddenly we were on opposite poles and I was unable to effectively share my knowledge without major finesse. READ MORE