Zubin Damania, MD – better known as ZDoggMD – drew widespread laughter and applause from the full House of Delegates at TexMed 2018’s opening general session by poking fun at the problems physicians face and challenging Texas doctors to do something about them.
“We need to change before [problems in the medical field are] going to change,” he said. “That’s why you guys are all here. I see it, I hear it on the front lines. We need a voice, we need to catalyze change.”
Since 2010, the Stanford-trained physician has used humorous music video parodies, podcasts, speeches, and just about every other forum to promote what he calls “Health 3.0” — a reimagining of modern medicine. (Visit his website at ZDoggMD.com.) He has built up a following of more than 1.5 million Facebook users, and most of his avid fans are in the medical profession.
Dr. Damania, who also spoke at TexMed 2014, showed excerpts from his videos and ridiculed many of the problems that frustrate physicians, such as electronic health records (EHRs) and patients who ignore treatment.
“Look, we need [EHRs] – we’re not going back to paper,” he said. “But what we don’t need is what they are, which is a 1990s car phone. Remember that? It was like, ‘Wow, man. I can make a call from my car!' Then you try to use it. It costs $10 a minute, it gets crappy service, and it’s got a rotary dial.”
Dr. Damania said physicians' tendency to obey authority is costing them their leadership role in the medical field. He partly blamed physician training, which he compared to the training of elephants. He said elephants are conditioned from a young age to obey by first being chained to a spot. After a while, they simply stay in place by having the trainer put a rope around their neck – a rope the elephant could break easily.
“Think back to medical school,” he said. “When was the rope first put around our neck? When we’re first taught to learn a bunch of facts and regurgitate them on a test. And in the second year when we were taught that the rules are, ‘Kiss the ring of the authority figure and behave, so that one day you will be the ring that is kissed.’ And when we reach residency, ‘Just get through the day. We know the system is broken. You just need to be resilient and survive it.’ And now we are a room full of 51,000 elephants who are powerful, and yet we will not move. This is the conditioned inertia of us, and we need to take responsibility to throw off the chains.”
Dr. Damania said TMA is a great tool for bringing about positive change, calling it the “strongest, most epic medical association in the country.” He also encouraged Texas physicians to share their stories on his show to help build the case for bringing about change in medicine.
“All these elephants, if we got up,” he said, “we would have real power.”