My friend John, a physician, recently married a charming Japanese woman, Yamika. John told me the first time they were invited
to a party to meet many of John's colleagues, Yamika was panicstricken. She wanted to make a good impression, yet she was tense
about talking to American doctors. John was the only one she'd
ever met, and during their romance they didn't spend a whole lot
of time discussing medicine.
John told her, "Don't worry about it, Yami. They all ask each
other the same old questions. When you meet them, just ask,
'What's your specialty' and 'Are you affiliated with a hospital?'
"Then, to get into deeper conversation," he continued, "throw
out questions like 'How's your relationship with your hospital?' or
'How's the current medical environment affecting you?' These are
hot issues with doctors because everything's changing in health
care."
John said Yamika delivered the lines verbatim. She circulated
the party asking the various doctors' specialties and inquiring
about their affiliations and relationships with their hospitals. As a
result, she was the hit of the party. Many of John's colleagues later
congratulated him on having found such a charming and insightful woman.
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How to Bare Their Hot
Button (Elementary
Doc-Talk)
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Copyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.
Getting the Real Grabber
It's not just doctors. Every profession has concerns that are all the
buzz within the industry. The rest of the world, however, knows
little about these fixations. For example, independent booksellers
constantly complain that big superstore chains are taking over the
industry. Accountants lie awake nights worrying about liability
insurance for faulty audits. And dentists grind their teeth over
OSHA and EPA regulations. Oh, us writers, too. We're always
bellyaching about magazines not paying us for electronic rights to
our precious words.
Suppose some hapless soul were unlucky enough to find himself in a party of writers. Making conversation with these folks
(who seldom know what they think until they see what they say)
is no easy task for one who is accustomed to communicating in
the spoken word. However, if before the party the nonwriter had
called just one writer acquaintance and asked about the burning
issues, he'd have had hot conversation with the wordsmiths all evening. I call the technique "Baring Their Hot Button."