A lot of doctors and medical experts I've dealt with sometimes have the mistaken notion that it's beneath their dignity to dumb things down to the media. That's not the right attitude to think of, you really have to think of it in terms of you have a patient right in front of you. And this patient is a wonderful person. But this, this patient may be an engineer or a mailman, or an English teacher, they don't have any medical training. How would you really explain what's going on? Whether it's new research or new techniques or new therapies?
How would you explain it to this one person? That's what you've got to do. When you're talking to reporters, you're not giving a lecture at the Harvard Medical School. So don't succumb to that temptation. of showing reporters and talk show producers how smart you are. By using a lot of big words and a lot of jargon.
You'll actually seem smarter to report The media and the public, when you can use smaller, simpler words that everyone knows because here's the thing. It's really easy if you're a reporter to find smart doctors because most doctors are smarter than average, otherwise they wouldn't have gotten into medical school. Most healthcare administrators, most nurses, most dietitians are fairly bright people. So you're not going to distinguish yourself when talking to reporters and talking to producers and talk show host by just sounding smart because everyone in your field is smart for you might not love everyone but still they're higher IQ higher education than people in general. So you're not going to distinguish yourself. by just using big words and sounding smart.
You're going to distinguish yourself by simplifying complex issues complex scientific and medical matters in to easily digest testable, understandable terms. That's where your smarts come into play. So please with everything you do on messaging, soundbites, how you express yourself on healthcare issues, medical issues, you've always got to be thinking about how can you make this thoroughly understandable and memorable to people because ultimately, that's the only way you're going to help the public. So please, please keep in mind, the simpler You are the smarter you will be perceived.