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Dr. Brian Goldman

Speaker Exclusive

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Emergency Room Physician on the Power of Teamwork

The host of the thought-provoking CBC Radio show White Coat, Black Art, Dr. Brian Goldman is a leading voice for reform of the healthcare system. He believes we should listen to patients and change medical culture to improve the quality of care. In addition, he promotes whistleblowing by healthcare providers to deal with problems in hospitals. He is the author of The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy is Essential in Everyday Life. In researching this book, he undertook a personal odyssey to understand more about empathy and how it is vital to our physical and mental health. A powerful and engaging speaker, he is an excellent choice for healthcare organizations and any group that wants to transform complex systems.

Keynote Speeches

The Power of Teamwork: How We Can All Work Better Together

In the high-pressure and complex setting of healthcare, a new approach to teamwork is leading to healthier patients, happier staff and more efficient operations. Healthcare’s embrace of a new teamwork model has been noticed by people outside the medical world, so doctors are going outside the walls of the hospital to teach manufacturers, business owners, franchisees, customer service representatives and even those in sports and entertainment to do better by shifting the culture from “me” to “we.”

Based on his latest book and drawing on groundbreaking research and examples from around the world, Dr. Goldman shows the audience how a team approach to medicine can improve customer service and help women break the glass ceiling. It can solidify the provision of social services to troubled youth, and boost the efficiency and safety of the military and critical industrial complexes like nuclear power plants. It can even make professional sports teams perform better.

Future of Healthcare | Will Someone Please Invent An App for That?

Twenty-first century healthcare uses cutting-edge technology, while record-keeping and information technology are primitive. Medical professionals often handwrite their notes and require patients to use a phone to book appointments. Can disruptive innovation modernize our healthcare system? Dr. Goldman argues that there is a need for a shake-up in healthcare computing, providing examples of apps that are both improving patient care and saving health professionals time. By having patients and healthcare providers use their mobile devices, we can reduce unnecessary wait times and optimize processes.

Key takeaways:
• Using the hackathon approach, how even the most technophobe doctors and nurses can team up with up-and-coming software engineers to invent cutting-edge medical apps.
• How to reduce unnecessary wait times by optimizing processes through mobile devices.
• The structures needed to free up more time away from services and re-allocate it towards thinking & developing strategies for innovation.

 

The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy Is Essential in Everyday Life

Powerful and engaging, this presentation takes audiences away from the theatre of medicine and into the world at large, investigating why kindness is essential to our well-being. Dr. Goldman shares personal anecdotes from his quest to expand his own sense of empathy, as discussed in his recent book. Audiences will also hear some captivating and moving stories from around the planet, showing the secrets to success of the most empathic people alive.

 

Whistleblowers in Health Care

In order to make healthcare safer for patients, it’s critical to have more whistleblowers. Some people regard Edward Snowden as a hero for exposing government wrongdoing, while others believe he is threatening national security. Surprisingly, whistleblowers are quite unusual in healthcare. Using excerpts of interviews from his radio program White Coat, Black Art, Dr. Goldman explores the need for whistleblowers in the sector and examines why there are so few of them. He cites examples of hospital whistleblowers and what happened to them when they spoke up. He points to the United Kingdom as a shining example of a country that is making healthcare safer by turning whistleblowing into a virtue. This could be a powerful model for health systems in North America.

 

The Secret Language of Doctors

Doctors and other health professionals have invented thousands of words, phrases and acronyms to describe patients, everyday situations and colleagues they wish they didn’t have to deal with. Slang can create a bond of shared anger or misery among colleagues. Or it can prevent eavesdropping outsiders from understanding what you’re talking about. Slang or argot that is well constructed can be said along hospital corridors and elevators without patients and family members being the wiser. Irreverent, funny and often biting, veteran medical culture watcher Dr. Brian Goldman gives the telling examples of medical slang, where they come from, and what they reveal about the culture of modern medicine.

Patient Engagement
Until recently, most Canadian hospitals seldom paid any attention to the patient point of view. Many health professionals think the opinions of patients aren’t worth getting because patients don’t know medicine. However, forward-thinking hospitals are taking patient complaints and using them to improve healthcare. And they’re involving current and former patients and their families in every aspect of hospital life: from interviewing potential new hires to changing the way the hospital delivers care. Dr. Brian Goldman explores the challenges that can be addressed with more input from patients.

Patient Engagement

Until recently, most Canadian hospitals seldom paid any attention to the patient point of view. Many health professionals think the opinions of patients aren’t worth getting because patients don’t know medicine. However, forward-thinking hospitals are taking patient complaints and using them to improve healthcare. And they’re involving current and former patients and their families in every aspect of hospital life: from interviewing potential new hires to changing the way the hospital delivers care. Dr. Brian Goldman explores the challenges that can be addressed with more input from patients.

Platform Plus Presentations

Unique formats and ways to connect with audiences.
Panelist/In Conversation

Audience reviews:

  • Brian Goldman was wonderful, in fact I do wish we had him booked earlier in our event as his approach would have been enjoyed more that way!

    - Director of Practice & Communications, College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Alberta
  • We can't thank you enough for your contribution to the evening. More importantly, I thought it very kind of you to be so generous with your time spent with the staff and supporters of the event. The gift of your books was very thoughtful. The CCS staff were overwhelmed by the response from the audience to the campaign ask. It was far beyond their expectations.

    - 145 Live Solutions
  • The event with Brian Goldman surpassed all our expectations. Dr. Goldman was informative and entertaining. I really think that Dr. Goldman's smooth engagement with the panel and with the audience presented some new insights for him as well.

    - George Street United Church
  • Dr. Goldman was a huge hit! Folks were over the moon with his talk - both the content and the manner in which he delivered his message. All the evaluations noted that he set the tone for the conference - which was very positive and congratulated us on selecting such a fine speaker.

    - Nova Scotia Community College
  • His presentation was excellent and he put real effort into personalizing the content. He struck an excellent balance between content and entertainment. We'd be thrilled to have him again.

    - Friends of Medicare
  • Dr. Goldman was well received. He even took the time to sign the books that were included in our arrangement which has made for a great stewardship piece for our major sponsors. We are thoroughly pleased.

    - Events Specialist, The Lung Association
  • Brian is always fantastic. He was helpful and accommodating to work with. Great all around.

    - Manager, Community Engagement and Information Technology, The Change Foundation
  • It was very insightful and engaging. The attendees were also interested in the topic and asked a lot of questions during the Q&A. I enjoyed his sense of humour and the way he spoke with the audience, and his use of various real-world examples and audio clips in his slides helped make the topic of healthcare and medical errors very pertinent.

    - Marketing Team, Best Doctors

Speaker Biography

Dr. Goldman’s style on stage is earnest, heartfelt and sincere. On stage it becomes clear that he has a passion for compassion. Dr. Goldman makes complex medical issues digestible for audiences. He personalizes medicine and the human frailties of his profession. He is unafraid to address tough or controversial issues head on in a comprehensive way.

Dr. Goldman is one of those rare individuals with great success in not one but several adrenaline-pumping careers. He is a highly regarded emergency physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. A veteran medical broadcaster, he is also the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s award-winning radio show “White Coat, Black Art”, where he takes listeners behind the scenes of hospitals and doctor’s offices. Dr. Goldman unpacks and demystifies what goes on inside medicine’s sliding doors – with topics that include burnout among health professionals, racism in health care and meeting the challenge of providing care for kids with complex medical needs when they age out of the system.

His inspiring yet bracingly honest TEDx talk about medical errors—which has been viewed on the Internet almost one million times—has cemented his reputation as one of his generation’s keenest observers of the culture of modern medicine.

A bestselling author of the book The Night Shift: Real Life in the ER, Dr. Goldman takes readers through giddying heights and crashing lows as he works through a typical night shift in one of Canada’s busiest ERs. His second book The Secret Language of Doctors is a biting look at medical slang, and what it reveals of what the doctor really thinks about your mother’s obesity, your grandfather’s dementia or her colleague’s competence.

And, he’s not afraid to take a hard look at himself. In his latest book – The Power of Kindness: Why Empathy is Essential in Everyday Life – Goldman searches for his own capacity for caring around the world, through his own brain circuitry and inside his heart.