by Sven Larsen (@svenplarsen)

Got $2000 to spare?

Never mind, I think I already know the answer.

In this “do more with less” decade, the idea of “spare budget” or discretionary funds is pretty much non-existent. And companies that are continually slashing sales forces and other key parts of their organization aren’t normally inclined to shell out a lot of cash for their employees’ professional development.

Unfortunately, no one seems to have told the Pharma conference organizers this.

Now we’re not trying to cut off our noses to spite our faces here. Pixels & Pills is well known for our conference coverage and we couldn’t bring you the videos and other helpful content we do without the strong support of companies like EXL, IXI, and BDI or folks like Kevin Kruse or Shwen Gwee. We see the best (and the worst) conference content that’s offered every year. And it pains us to realize  that when there’s a really standout presentation from someone like Tom Goetz or Ceci Zak only a very limited amount of the Pharma community are going to see it. Worse, our current “pay for play” model means that small startups who have great ideas but limited budgets aren’t even a part of the conversation. It doesn’t have to be that way and it hurts growth and innovation in our business.

One of the best conferences we attended over the last year was the PSFK conference in New York City. This conference, focused on innovation and the latest technologies is relatively cheap to attend (under $400) but full of the kind of people you want to hear from. Artists and entrepeeurs, technologists and designers, the people who are shaping our future before we even know it. Past speakers at the conference have included Shepard Fairey, Andy Spade, Dernnis Crowley (founder of FourSquare) and Richard Fine. Yes, only one of those speakers is directly related to healthcare but the mix of different disciplines and individuals is what gives conferences like the PSFK event, TED and SXSW the opportunity to identify what’s coming before it reaches the mainstream. And that’s something we’re sorely lacking in Pharma conference programming.

The low admission price also ensures that attendees are not just senior personnel from attending companies. Your organization could send five people to a PSFK conference for the same price as a ticket to an average Pharma event. That means you could take along that bright young junior manager or even that intern who shows such promise. The kind of people who might really embrace some of the new ideas being discussed and figure out how to apply them to your business.

There are alternatives of course. TEDMED and the main TED conference have created a terrific model for sharing highly educational content online. And free events like New York’s upcoming Social Media Week (with it’s Health and Wellness hub) provide a valuable alternative to traditional Pharma conferences. But ultimately we need to democratize both the speaker and attendee process for our industries major events. Conferences were never meant to be about spending thousands of dollars to hear paid speeches by big Pharma companies. They were meant to be an opportunity for the best and the brightest in our industry to come together and share ideas and best practices.

And that’s a model we need to return to.

What do you think? What would you do to make Pharma conferences better?

by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

Can two of the hottest organizational and operational trends from the last 20 years – Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma – be adapted to pharma? That’s a trick question: They already have been, and quite successfully.

But, how about online pharma marketing? It’s a more interesting proposition.

First, some definitions for the majority of us who aren’t steeped in business-optimization methodologies: There are differences between Lean and Six Sigma methods of business, but both emphasize continuous improvement and a formal process of review and correction. Lean is sometimes seen as less time-consuming than Six Sigma; the easiest way to boil it down is that Six Sigma seeks reduced process variation, and Lean strives for improved process flow.

All of which sounds great if you’re running a manufacturing facility – who wouldn’t want fewer variations from an optimized process or an improved process flow? And they’re proven: Top-flight Six Sigma implementation is one of the factors that helped General Electric become a leader across many industries.

Applying these principles to digital pharma marketing isn’t quite the stretch you’d imagine. And while implementing a full Lean or Six Sigma strategy in your marketing efforts requires more than a lone blog entry for guidance, you can grasp some of the broad brush strokes pretty quickly:

Get good at measuring, and then measure everything. Whether you’re drawn to the Lean or Six Sigma model – and there’s a case to be made for both when it comes to pharma marketing – you’ll want to figure out how to measure things, both more comprehensively and more accurately.

Anyone exposed to social media or Web analytics knows you can measure online activity, but don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by these easy numbers. The sort of comprehensive measurement that these processes call for cover things like median and mean sales growth per sales rep in the weeks following an advertising campaign’s launch, or ROI per dollar spent on paid media in category-leading drugs (which might have much higher public awareness) versus secondary drugs.

Bottom line: You can’t track what you can’t measure and you can’t improve what you can’t track.

Round up your black belts. Six Sigma relies heavily on small groups of professionals, sometimes called black belts or green belts, empowered to review data, brainstorm improvements and then implement them. They operate with management’s approval, but they are also empowered to suggest changes outside of their department or division if that’s what it takes to improve quality.

Note a couple of key differences from many marketing processes: First, there’s an understanding that solving a problem might mean changes outside of the department or area of business operation – a big change for some marketing operations. Second and equally important is the idea of the small force of change agents, something that is necessary for breaking down organizational silos and stimulating overall movement of social initiatives.

Bottom line: Even if an organization’s social media strategy is centralized, training the entire organization can mistake-proof social execution.

Commitment to the process matters more than implementing it everywhere. Make no mistake: It’s a huge commitment to undertake either Lean or Six Sigma methodologies. That’s why it’s acceptable – advisable, even – to dip your organizational toe into the water slowly, with project-level and department level test projects. Try, fail, analyze, iterate and try again – get the process right for your team and your challenges, and then you can roll it out to more of your digital marketing efforts.

Bottom line: Every business is different. As new technologies, platforms and devices expand the digital experience, flexibility is necessary for managing a fast-moving, changing environment.

Marketing has always been a simple proposition: Deliver value in order to capture value. Within that context, business-optimization regimens like Lean and Six Sigma not only have a place in digital marketing, they’re just one more step in a long tradition of figuring out the most effective, efficient way to get the right value proposition into the right prospect’s hands so they can take action.

You’ve told us that you want to see more about what goes on at Zemoga, the sponsor of this media property, so we thought we’d give you a quick look in at a recent project that the team is especially proud of. Maria Rueda gave us the lowdown on one of Zemoga’s new babies, the HeartBeats app (which was created for the Adobe AIR App Challenge), and the thinking behind it, as well as her thoughts on the competition.

Here’s what she had to say:

Originally, the goal was to have HeartBeats be a digital tool for surgeon training, simulating heart surgery with all of its inherent risks and complications. Since that’s obviously complex, creating it will require a lot of knowledge, investigations, permissions and reviews. To begin the process, and to be able to submit an app to the contest, we decided to turn the idea into a game.

This app is designed for everyone, of any age, who has ever dreamed about becoming a surgeon, or who has an interest in medicine. The goal is to demonstrate what a real surgery looks like and what all the tools are that heart surgeons use.

We hope to add difficulty levels to the app, different procedures and other types of surgery. In the long term, it would be great to turn the app into a real training tool; that’s a big challenge we’d love to take on.

While we’re disappointed we didn’t place in the contest, of course, it’s great to see how strong the winning applications are. They all share a high level of polish, creativity and innovation. Conqu, in particular, is a very clever take on the often-visited subject of task management, and Tweet Hunt – the overall winner – presents a fresh and fun way of reading tweets while playing a video game. Something that stands out is that the concepts themselves are not very complex or elaborate, but rather elegantly simple. It goes to show that in today’s mobile market, innovation, creativity and solid execution are the most important qualities.

Out of all of the winners, we’ve been particularly surprised by Level, which we believe succeeded in something that none of the other apps did: it managed to take advantage of the two screens on the Sony Tablet P by integrating it to its core mechanics. This shows the ability of the developer to harness the particularities of the device and use them to their advantage.

As more and more medical schools are handing their students a tablet computer on their first day, we expect to see a lot more applications like Zemoga’s HeartBeats. While it will never take the place of real life experience, it will be interesting to see how this technology will play a part in the future of medical education.

If you’re an Android user, download the free HeartBeats app yourself, and let us know what you think!

This post is part of a series of point/counterpoint arguments proposed by different members of the Pixels & Pills staff. We’re strong believers that healthy arguments can yield the best solutions, and we hope that you enjoy our series. Feel free to add your own arguments in the comments section below!

by Krissy Goelz (@krisgoelz)

In The Godfather Part II, Michael Corleone lambasts a Mafia crime family member following an attempted hit on his life.

“In my home!” he rages. “In my bedroom, where my wife sleeps! Where my children come and play with their toys.”

Even in the mob, business doesn’t belong in personal quarters. The same is true for how professional communicators should handle their social media presence. If your business role requires you to participate in social media, you need to lock down your personal profile, tailor privacy settings and keep what you do on the off hours separate from your job.

In my father’s day it was easier to compartmentalize work. You left the office at 5 p.m. and your personal life was your own. In the digital age, segregating personal details from professional ones is harder, and it takes a great deal of diligence. But, it’s worth it if you want to build an image as a thought leader, trusted advisor or esteemed professional.

When participating in social media you have to enact the grandma rule. In the fields of Behavior and Psychology, this is known as the “Premack Principle.” What it means is conduct yourself properly and never post anything that you aren’t willing to shout from a rooftop or say in front of your grandmother. This is true of all social media users, but especially those who post on behalf of their organizations.

To borrow again from The Godfather, when participating in social media you also have to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. There’s always danger of putting information into the wrong person’s hands – whether that’s competitive details, revealing personal health information or posting personal messages on Facebook during business hours. Even messages that are meant to be private sometimes find their way into the public arena. If you share too much of yourself, you may be surprised when it comes back to haunt you.

Blurring the lines between work and personal life can cost you reputation or financial damage. Just because you qualify something you post with the caveat “the views reflected are my own and not that of my employer” doesn’t mean that a reader is able to maintain that separation. In fact, the more the lines between work and leisure blur, the harder it is to separate our identities.

One way to manage a clean division is to use different platforms for different purposes. For example, keep business relationships and professional content on LinkedIn or Twitter. Use Facebook to connect with college roommates, neighborhood or childhood friends or other personal connections. If you want to use platforms like Facebook or Google+ for both purposes then make sure you create two profiles and work the privacy settings.

While you could argue that we’re all multidimensional human beings and everyone knows people have a work personality and an after-hours persona, there’s still no reason to mix them together.

We’re at work to work and do great things on behalf of our employers. How and when we socialize needs to be kept separate. Also, judiciously parsing information is never a bad thing. It’s good to keep a little mystery about yourself.

There’s no way to know how even the most inane things will be perceived by an outsider, whether it’s having a bad day or not being able to relate to your training for the New York City Marathon or sharing feelings about the NRA. Connecting with others online is critical, but as with anything, perception is reality. Shaping and controlling how you’re received requires a disciplined approach to managing your digital profile.

How are you handing your online presence?

This post is part of a series of point/counterpoint arguments proposed by different members of the Pixels & Pills staff. We’re strong believers that healthy arguments can yield the best solutions, and we hope that you enjoy our series. Feel free to add your own arguments in the comments section below!

by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

As Egon Spengler told us in “Ghostbusters”, “crossing the streams” was a horrific tactical error, one which would create a terrifying explosion of undreamed-of power and destruction. “Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light,” he explained.

That’s how a lot of people feel about mixing business and personal personas. Nothing comes of “crossing the streams” except chaos and disaster. Social-media professionals – those of us in the communications and marketing fields who work largely in social digital venues -cross the streams” between personal and business social networking at our peril, and that of our brand. As a result, some people, in representing their brand to the world, put on a brand hat so big that they hide underneath it completely.
In my opinion, all that gives you is a boring hat. I want a hat that’s walking around with a living, breathing, interesting person underneath it. This is what makes the company real: a warm fuzzy personal face. That’s the whole point of social media. It’s social. It has personality and feeling and humanity. If all I wanted to see was the brand hat, I’d go to Wikipedia or to your website.

There is, of course, inherent risk with the personal nature of social-media marketing. If you tie the online brand to one person, you risk losing your whole brand if that person leaves. Or, perhaps worse, if they disgrace themselves somehow, they take the brand down with them.

That simply reinforces why it must be done astutely. Social media is a delicate mix of informal conversation and careful consideration. Deliberation and silliness are never a more necessary couple than when trying to conduct yourself in social channels. Your brand is represented by a person, but your brand isn’t just one person.

One great example of this? Tony Hsieh. He is the Zappos dude, but Zappos’ culture and customer service is bigger than him.

One example to watch? Apple. Is their drive and idealism and vision the company’s, or did that die with Steve Jobs? The next few years will tell us.

To return to the “Ghostbusters” metaphor, do you remember what happened at the end of the movie? (If for some awful reason you haven’t seen this cinema classic, I’ll wait here while you go and do that now.)

The state of affairs had gotten desperate. The old ways weren’t working. People had made mistakes. Nothing they were trying was stopping things from getting worse. As a last resort, they crossed the streams. This new way of doing things, taking their individual energy and combining it in this new and scary way, was finally enough to save the day.

Should you take all your life lessons and business acumen from Ray, Winston, Egon and Dr. Peter Venkman? Well, maybe not. (Although, if someone asks if you’re a god? Say yes.) But in this case – go ahead. Cross the streams. Dare to be yourself as well as your brand.

by DJ Edgerton (@wiltonbound)

The question seems almost nonsensical at first – your Twitter followers may be really outstanding people, but they’re not organic chemists or researchers. And your Facebook fans, while devoted, probably do not, generally speaking, know how to move a new drug through the FDA approval process.

Just the same, it’s a mistake to discount your social audiences as a source for insight and innovation. In fact, a wide range of category-leading companies do just that. While social media is not as planned or controlled as a focus group, there’s potential in polling the audience when it comes to research and development – and along the way you can even benefit the very people you’re polling.

Doing it right requires a three-step plan:

Understand what you want to accomplish. In this regard, social media is no different than traditional R&D research: Don’t ask existing or potential customers anything without a clear purpose behind “the ask.” What do you want to accomplish? Are you looking for feedback on a service (such as when consumers call into the customer care center) or improvement on a product or direction for a new advertising campaign? What about new products: Are you exploring the potential for one or looking at whether your customers have a need for a product that you have not thought of?

A solid roadmap will have goals covering what you hope to accomplish and clear indications of which social channels are – and are not – appropriate. Need to demo a product? You Tube makes sense. On the other hand, Twitter may be a better fit for simple questions requiring quick feedback. And tools like custom Facebook apps offer ways to bring customers and fans into the content creation process.

Be relevant in your questions and rigorous in your data collection. A solid roadmap lays out needs and expectations, but even the best plans can go astray if your research questions don’t balance your needs with the realities of social media, which often boil down to: Don’t be boring.

Tweets sending people to a 50-question survey or requests that Facebook followers sit through six sample commercials in search of the one they like best are unlikely to go anywhere. Instead, keep things short, clear and – most importantly – be ready to monitor and take feedback from the conversations that grow out of your public questions. They can be the source of tremendous insight.

Crunch the data and don’t leave the audience in the dark. One of the unique aspects of social media is that a lot of silos get knocked down – people have a great (and sometimes unreasonable) desire to peek behind the corporate curtain and know what’s going on. This is a powerful force and can jump-start your social-driven research – people love to be treated like insiders, and promising to give them a first peek at a new innovation, a new campaign or even just a slight change in how your company does something will motivate participation in your research.

The key is: You have to deliver on your promise. If you tell participants you’re working on a new way to talk about an established product and want their input, give them a peek before it’s rolled out to the public. Not doing so is bad form in the social landscape; promising to do it and then not delivering is an even bigger faux pas.

Whether it’s a one-drug boutique company or a global powerhouse, research and development is a constant part of pharma’s product and service lifecycles. While social media isn’t a substitute for formalized marketing research, it can be a powerful, low-cost augmentation to the toolbox.

by Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl)

“If it’s not mobile, it won’t work in 2012 and beyond,” Jason Falls is quoted as saying in Awareness Networks 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions. “We’re a marketplace conditioned to look down on our screen first. It’s not a B2C vs. B2B thing. If your users are people, you’re going to need to be mobile.”

We’ve been talking about the importance of thinking mobile not just for pharma and healthcare marketing, but to provide much needed health services in the developing world for a while now. We feel strongly that including a mobile strategy in your plans will not only help you stay in business, it will help push innovation in healthcare to the next level.

With people turning more and more to the “second screen,” it’s important for us to think on how that screen can be best utilized. From The Department of Health & Human Services Health Data Initiative, which encouraged competitors to innovate around open data available from the government to make smartphone apps to improve health, to the insights shared by Jonathan Richman in his 2011 SXSWi presentation, “Your Computer is the Next Wonder Drug,” digital innovation is what is moving the world of healthcare forward. And pharma needs to keep pace.

Some quick facts for your consideration:

By 2015, 500 million people will be using mobile healthcare applications. [source]

Smartphones will offer the best opportunities for mobile health by 2015. [source]

17% of cell phone owners, or 15% of adults, have used their phone to look up health or medical information. [source]

Later this month, we’ll be at the Mobile Healthcare Communications 2012: Case Studies and Roundtables, taking place January 26, 2012 in NYC. This half-day conference will present case studies demonstrating how major healthcare brands are connecting with consumers and professionals through mobile communications. Case studies will be presented by representatives from Allergen, Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center – New York, Daiichi-Sankyo, and more. Interactive roundtables will follow the presentations. We’re looking forward to learning more about what companies have been successfully doing with mobile in the healthcare space, and talking about how we can keep innovating.

Use promo code P&P for a discounted rate of $175.

Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012
Location: The Graduate Center of The City University of NY
365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street), Conference Level C, New York, New York 10016
Website: http://www.bdionline.com/mobilehealthcare2012.html
Discount Code: P&P

As we come to the end of 2011, we also come to the end of our year-long Defining Moments series. Once a month, all this year, we’ve looked back at the biggest events from exactly 12 months prior, and noticed how we can relate what’s been changing our world to what we can do in our work. We’d love it if you were to check back over the series and let us know what you think:

January – Haiti earthquake

February – Tiger Woods scandal

March – Iceland volcano

April – Deepwater Horizon oil spill

May – United/Continental merger

June – vuvuzelas at the World Cup

July – Afghanistan Wikileaks documents

August – end of H1N1

September – Tyler Clementi’s death and the It Gets Better project

October – Chilean miner rescue

November – antimatter discovery

And now, December – when scientists announced that they had discovered arsenic-based life. What excited us about this story was not only its ground-breaking interest at the time, but the controversy that still swirls around it. It was startlingly important because, as New Scientist explained, “Until now, all known life has been built around… six major chemical elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur… which make up proteins, lipids and DNA. In all normal life forms, phosphorus is a major part of the backbone of the genetic material.”

Saying that an element that is not one of these six, and which is extremely toxic, could be swapped in – well, it sounded a bit like saying that gravity had an alternative, or that the sun didn’t have to rise in the east. Scientists last December were essentially implying that life could be completely foreign to the way we always imagined it – not on some other planet in some other galaxy, but right here on Earth.

Commentators were reduced to unscientific reactions in their surprise: comments like “really weird” and “shocking” showed the startling nature of the news.

However, nearly as soon as the study was published, it was met with vehement criticism. Some said it shouldn’t even have been published, as the science was done messily, with contaminants that could have given false results, or alternate explanations that were not addressed. The jury is out on whether arsenic-based life is as simple, and as groundbreaking, of a discovery as it first seemed.

However, this study and the reaction to it highlighted how social media is changing science. As the journal noted sniffily five months after the study’s publication, the debate was “finally being aired in the scientific literature rather than on blogs”. The implication was that peer-reviewed scientific journalism was worth notice, and commentary hastily posted on blogs wasn’t.

But isn’t there something to be said for scientific debate happening rapidly and publicly? Certainly, there’s no shortcut for thorough and accurate methods, for proper data analysis or for uninfluenced science.

But what if this study was on an anti-angiogenic molecule, instead of on a bacteria in a desolate lakebed? Would it be appropriate to react as this study’s lead author did, saying “We cannot indiscriminately wade into a media forum for debate at this time”? I would say no.

There’s an argument to be made that the biggest leap we need to take in science and medicine is one in timeliness. The academics themselves are saying that “Online scientific interaction outside the traditional journal space is becoming more and more important to academic communication.” The story of arsenic-based life showed us both the pros and cons of speeding the process up.

We’re glad you stuck with us for a year of Defining Moments. What would you choose for this year’s notable events?

by Russ Ward (@russcward)

What does it feel like to have a heart attack? What’s the cure for muscle soreness post-workout?  What one daily habit has the most positive effect on your health?

These are real questions asked on the popular question and answer site Quora. Question sites such as Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and Fluther are proliferating on the internet. On these sites members can ask or answers questions on a wide range of subject matter. Other sites such as Healthysparx are more narrow-focused.

Crowdsourcing opinions and guidance for health and wellness information gives patients much more control over their own health care than they ever had before. It also empowers them to help other patients, especially when a question matches their experience or expertise. But, a lot of time answers may be inaccurate, incomplete and inconsistent. And, everyone’s experience can be different.

Pharma has an opportunity on the question sites, especially as patients seek an authoritative voice and accurate information. But, is pharma prepared to participate?

Customers are going to talk and research products so it makes sense for pharma to figure out how to be part of the conversation. A lack of social media guidelines will likely limit participation for the time being, but it doesn’t mean question sites should be ignored.

Pharma can train social media spokespeople to respond with consistent, compliant messages, such as a link back to the company website. Because question sites often show up in the first page of search results, having a presence and quality content can bring patients to other properties such as a branded Facebook page or YouTube Channel.

Right now, the bigger opportunity lies in listening. Even under legal scrutiny, pharma marketers should be tracking and monitoring question sites to gather valuable business insight.

Users reveal data about themselves. What is every marketer looking for? To understand their customer’s pain points. On question sites, users are communicating the problems they’re looking to have solved. Keeping an ear to the ground can pinpoint opportunities for education, new customer segments or product uses or reveal disconnect between product messaging and public perception.

Learn who your influencers are. Who are your most vocal adversaries and advocates? Monitor frequency of occurrence to understand who and what is being posted and to ensure message accuracy. Gain insight into influencers and craft a communication strategy to ensure your products are promoted properly and that consumers have the education they need to make informed decisions.

Connect with people at key decision points. For the mother deciding which cough syrup formula is right for her congested three year old, receiving a coupon or information on how to keep her child comfortable during illness from a brand she trusts could influence a purchase decision. Companies such as New York-based Hunch are developing algorithms to recommend certain products when people pose commerce-related queries. By knowing what patients are asking, pharma companies can respond appropriately and ensure their actions and answers resonate with customer needs.

Pharmaceutical companies have a challenge responding via any social media, but they can get the listening component in place and develop internal social media guidelines that enable them to proceed in a compliant manner.

Any questions?

This post is part of a series of point/counterpoint arguments proposed by different members of the Pixels & Pills staff. We’re strong believers that healthy arguments can yield the best solutions, and we hope that you enjoy our series. Feel free to add your own arguments in the comments section below!

by Jason Brandt (@jasondmg3)

Yesterday you read one of our well-known “Point/Counterpoint” arguments – this one, from my colleague Krissy, a client strategist specializing in life sciences, discussing physicians and how they fit in to today’s world. After over a decade in pharmaceutical advertising, Krissy knows of what she speaks. And she’s using a lot of very popular arguments.

But I’m still going to disagree with her opinion on whether doctors are becoming obsolete.

As educated as consumers can be, as ubiquitous as technology connecting us to information can be, as much as our abilities to find and digest information have been expanded –

And as deeply as we care about our own health, as much as we need to be our own advocates, as much as we can’t rely on another person to make all our decisions for us –

We still need experts.

You depend on a mechanic to take care of a car you love. You depend on a great school to give your kids a quality education. You depend on your attorney to negotiate the mire of legalities in many big life changes.

Although, yes, more than a hundred medical schools in the United States churn out more than 25,000 new MDs every year and not every one of these is going to be stellar. And yes, it’s up to you to be involved and informed. And yes, there are cases where people do manage their own health alone (or repair their own cars, or home-school their kids, or defend themselves in court) and everything turns out great.

But your health and that of your family is the most important thing you have guardianship over. Feeling daring and independent? Take your chances with a new restaurant or a wacky new pair of argyle socks. Learn to brew your own beer or something.

When it comes to the complexities of life – particularly the life-and-death ones – we need experts. We need people who have learned the theory, the history, the arguments, the logic. We need people who have done the procedure dozens of times. We need a combination of a philosopher, and a fine artist, a theologian and a carpenter, a plumber and a psychic, a seamstress and a magician.

It’s natural to distrust those in whom you are in a negative power relationship. I’m never going know as much as the person managing my estate or selling me a car or taking care of my health, so our culture naturally tells jokes with lawyers and car salesmen and doctors as the punch lines. But when push comes to shove – especially literally – we need their expertise.

The old school of medicine needs pruning and reshaping, certainly. But to imply that people can seriously consider their medical care team complete without a core professional (who, by the way, could be a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant, as well as being an MD or a DO) – well, in my opinion, that isn’t just unrealistic, it’s irresponsible. My health is worth more than that to me, and I hope yours is to you too.