Minnesota-made podcast shares how to 'speak up for your health'

CATHY WURZER: Navigating the doctor's office is something obviously we've all had to do. Sometimes it can be kind of frustrating. Maybe you can't access your medical records or you feel like you're not getting the care you need.

It can be tough to advocate for yourself. And one Minnesota doctor is empowering patients to speak up. Dr. Archelle Georgiou is a physician and a longtime patient health advocate. And she has a new podcast called Speak Up for Your Health. She's on the line. It's good to hear your voice.

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Nice to be on Cathy. Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely. So as you know, a lot of podcasts talk to experts in the field. There are tons of medical podcasts where doctors are the host. But you talk to patients. Why center it on patients?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Absolutely. I thought it was really important to have me talk to patients and have them tell their stories because while we all agree that we all need to advocate for ourselves, not many people know how to do that. And when people hear other patients stories, that gives them real-life examples of how to speak up, what happened when they spoke up. And my goal is to hopefully empower people to speak up when they're faced with a challenging situation. So people's stories are really powerful, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: I bet as a physician, a longtime physician-- I hear this from my doctor friends all the time-- you're always asked for advice. So, is this a way that you're kind of taking that role and putting it out into the wider world?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Well, absolutely. I wrote a book in 2017. It's called Health Care Choices-- Five Steps to Getting the Medical Care You Want and Need. And I'm really proud of how it's been used by people to advocate for their health.

But I wanted to have an even broader impact. And I think that real time stories that are current that keep coming to listeners is a really effective way to help people get through the challenges that they have. I literally get one or two phone calls a day from people, friends, friends of friends who are struggling with some aspect of navigating through the system. And I want to be able to help people beyond just those who have my cell phone number.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. What are some of the reasons though that people might be reticent to speak up when talking to a doctor?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Well, the theme that has come through in the podcast episodes that I've done. So far is that patients are reticent because they are afraid of retaliation. They're so afraid of behind the scenes being referred to as that patient or they're afraid that the doctor might not give them the quality of care that they might give to a more passive patient.

And what I want to emphasize is that uniformly in every single story that I have shared on this podcast so far, the response from the physician, from the clinician has been they've stopped. They've paused. They've re-explained.

They didn't retaliate at all. They welcomed the feedback. They may have been stunned a little bit, but they never ever retaliated. And I really want to-- if there's one takeaway from this interview, it's I hope that people can stop being so fearful that doctors will retaliate.

CATHY WURZER: I want to have folks listen to a little bit of the podcast, if that's OK. This is from an episode called One Patient, Two Doctors, Two Opinions. This is the case of Bridgette, a patient who had an abnormal heart rhythm. Let's listen.

BRIDGETTE: Because I had been so much looking at, well, what if I don't get the procedure? And then it was, well, what if I do get the procedure? So for me, it was finally being able to sort of vocalize the unspoken fear. And being talked through that was the thing that allowed me to make that decision.

CATHY WURZER: So, how did Bridgette make that decision? What did she do to help inform that decision?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Well, and just to put some context, Bridgette had a potentially life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm and got opposite opinions from two cardiologists in the exact same cardiology group. So she was really struggling and really confused about what to do. And the question that the nurse practitioner asked her that resolved her uncertainty with saying, "Bridgette, what are you most afraid of?"

And when she asked Bridgette that question and Bridgette said, "I'm afraid of dying on the table." And then the nurse practitioner was able to come back with statistics on the rate of death from the procedure that they were suggesting that she had, which was way less than 1%. And that fact that Bridgette didn't have at her fingertips prior to being asked the question was what she needed to get over the fear and to make the decision that she did. So that's really a key takeaway, I think, for both any clinicians that may be listening as well as any, well, all of us or patients that are listening is to be able to either ask about or verbalize the fear.

What is keeping you, holding you back from making the decision? Because sometimes your greatest fear is not based in fact. And you can get over it by understanding what the true data is.

CATHY WURZER: I'm a big fan of taking notes, obviously, given what I do for a living. So I'm tend to be the note taker when I'm with my mom or maybe another friend might have me in the room just to take notes. I also take notes when I'm talking to my doctor. Do you recommend that? Of course, with cell phones, can folks record their conversations with their doctor just to make sure you have it all together?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Absolutely. Actually, taking notes is fine, but sometimes taking notes can even be distracting because you are spending time writing rather than actively listening. So what I recommend is using the voice memo part of your phone to be able to record the conversation. Again, so many patients are afraid to do that. What if the doctor thinks that I'm going to be litigious or use that recording in some negative way?

Here's what I'd recommend. Let them know that you want to hear every single thing that they're saying. You want to go back and listen to it again and make sure that you understand. So you're going to record this for your own information, maybe share it with your family who might want to know what was said at the doctor's office. Again, uniformly, when people have preceded the recording with the explanation of how they're going to use the recording, doctors are happy to not have to repeat themselves frankly.

CATHY WURZER: So the podcast highlights so many issues that people face when going to the doctor. And I'm wondering from where you stand, what does this say about our health system in this country?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: I think it says that it's not a system. It's very complex. And everyone is trying to do the best job that they can. But the complexity often gets in the way of having it be a positive, seamless experience for patients and families.

And we're not going to change that overnight. So that's why I'm such an advocate of speaking up for your health, advocating for your health because we live in this system. It really is one of the best in the world. But things fall through the cracks, errors happen, wires get crossed. And so if you are speaking up for yourself, you can avoid some of the frustration, some of the delays in care, and maybe some of the errors that we're at risk for.

CATHY WURZER: By the way talking to patients for your podcast, has it helped you and your practice?

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Well, I'm not practicing actively. I certainly did in the past. But I do interact with a lot of people who call me for advice. And I've been on this path in my career for 30-plus years.

And maybe what surprised me most, Cathy, about doing this podcast because I already wrote a book about this-- I considered myself an expert-- is how much I am learning about how to help patients better advocate for themselves, the example about asking what patients are most afraid of and me encouraging people to do that. Another aspect is that sometimes I realize that patients decisions aren't always the most evidence based or to me, they may not be the most rational. I just interviewed somebody. This podcast isn't published yet.

But she had breast cancer and really, really did not want to have radiation even though that put her at risk for a progression of her breast cancer. And I realized that as physicians, we need to step back, ask why, and understand that people have their own fears, preferences, and priorities that are an important ingredient to what the right care plan is for each person. And that's what each of us want.

We want the right care plan for us. And hopefully, that includes a lot of science. But it has to include that individual's values, preferences, and priorities.

CATHY WURZER: Interesting podcast. Thank you for joining us.

ARCHELLE GEORGIOU: Thank you so much for having me, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Dr. Archelle Georgiou's been with us local physician, long time patient health advocate. We're going to have a link to her podcast Speak Up for Your Health on our website mprnews.org.