Become a Jedi of behavior change
By Stacey Butterfield
Some have called Ed Tori, DO, FACP, the patient whisperer, but he says any internal medicine physician can learn to interact with patients as effectively as he does.
This afternoon, Dr. Tori, director of well-being education at the MedStar Health Center for Well-Being and an assistant professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., will teach Internal Medicine Meeting 2023 attendees about seven simple rules that can be used to encourage healthful behavior changes in patients.
"I'll be covering influence, persuasion, body language, rapport," he said. "We're taught often about the data and the science and the evidence and the reasons behind things, but that's actually not how to optimally move somebody. The way we move people is with emotion."
Dr. Tori's 2:45 p.m. session, "Optimizing Behavior Change in Primary Care: Jedi Mind Tricks," will include advice to physicians on the importance of managing their own emotions to improve clinical interactions from the moment a patient walks in the door.
"Sometimes we're busy. We've maybe just left an argument, or maybe we left a pretty difficult encounter, or maybe we're just swamped and we're behind. Maybe we have to use the bathroom, or maybe we are overcaffeinated or undercaffeinated," Dr. Tori said. "Managing our state is really key, and this is a skill that can be developed, and it can be tweaked and experimented with."
The session's "Star Wars" subtitle is no exaggeration, according to Dr. Tori. "I usually start off the talk saying, 'Today I'm going to change your life, and that is a promise,'" he said. "You're going to leave with skills that are valuable not just at work but in absolutely any interaction you have with another human."
Medical applications of these techniques range from smoking cessation and rehab engagement to discussing end-of-life decisions or delivering good news like a viable pregnancy after many years of infertility. Physicians often default to talking about statistics in such situations, but that's not the way to persuade, according to Dr. Tori.
"You don't move somebody to quit smoking with the relative risk reduction of a stroke," he said. "It might be a grandchild that they want to play soccer with or just being able to go for a walk with their spouse."
Dr. Tori gathered his strategies by embedding himself in a wide variety of industries that need to influence people, from marketing and copywriting to hypnotism and game design. "You're there to influence their health," he said. "There are very deliberate things that we can borrow."
He's given keynote speeches to a variety of physician specialties and other professionals in multiple countries, but never before at Internal Medicine Meeting. "This is the first time I'll be speaking at the ACP event, and so I'm very excited to meet all of you," Dr. Tori said. ■