{"id":9636,"date":"2023-08-01T12:38:11","date_gmt":"2023-08-01T12:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virgohealth.com\/?p=9636"},"modified":"2023-11-02T12:40:59","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T12:40:59","slug":"scientific-stories-moving-minds-into-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/virgohealth.com\/us\/scientific-stories-moving-minds-into-motion\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientific Stories: Moving Minds into Motion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Sachin Makani, EVP of Scientific Strategy and Communication<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBehavior is the end result of a prevailing story in one\u2019s mind: change the story and the behavior will follow.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2015 Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the world of medical communication, we are regularly tasked with changing the behavior of a group of people, usually health care prescribers in a certain disease area. What is the most effective way to achieve the desired behavior change? We know that television commercials directed at the layperson will not move the needle for a physician audience that wants detailed, evidence-based information on efficacy, safety, and dosing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter peer-to-peer programming, in which highly-regarded specialists and thought leaders in that field deliver the message, sometimes to a live audience, other times in a virtual broadcast or video. What should the message actually be? Such presentations are often stuffed with large blocks of text and graphs shoved against each other, without much thought going into what the audience will experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who\u2019s lived around other humans knows that old habits die hard, and trying to change someone\u2019s behavior with the presentation of data alone doesn\u2019t do the trick very well<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a case study for how to do it better, we turn the clock back to WW2, where a scientific story, properly told, changed the course of history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some context: it\u2019s the late 1930s; Germany has just invaded Poland and is on track for more. Simultaneously, the field of nuclear physics is undergoing a revolution, with scientists in Europe and the US having discovered it\u2019s possible to split the atom (ie, fission). Some predicted that, under the right conditions, it may be possible for fission of one atom to cause fission in two others, leading to a chain reaction that unfolds in fractions of a millisecond. This could lead to the development of weapons with unimaginable explosive yield \u2013 the question was, which country would realize this potential and capitalize on it first?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the \u201catomic chain reaction\u201d still just an idea, academic scientists needed to get the attention of the US government, and fast, before Germany developed their own bomb. Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein each drafted letters addressed to President Roosevelt himself, to be hand-delivered by Alexander Sachs, economist and the president\u2019s trusted adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019Alex,\u2019 Roosevelt hailed across the Oval Office, \u2018what are you up to?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sachs liked to warm up the president with jokes\u2026 now he told Roosevelt the story of the young American inventor who wrote a letter to Napoleon, proposing to build him a fleet of ships that carried no sail but could attack England in any weather, without fear of wind or storm. Napolean scoffed: ships without sails? \u2018Bah! Away with your visionists!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young inventor, Sachs concluded, was Robert Fulton. Roosevelt laughed easily. Sachs cautioned Roosevelt to listen carefully: what he had now to impart was at least the equivalent of the steam boat inventor\u2019s proposal to Napoleon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Szilard and Einstein\u2019s prepared files, however, \u201c[did not suit Sachs\u2019 sense] of how to present the information to a busy President. \u2018I am an economist, not a scientist, but I had a prior relationship with the President, and Szilard and Einstein agreed I was the right person to make the relevant scientific material intelligible to Mr. Roosevelt. No scientist could sell it to him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Sachs read his own 800-word summation, \u201cthe first authoritative report to a head of state on the potential of using nuclear energy to make a weapon of war. It emphasized power production first, radioactive material for medical use second, and \u2018bombs of hitherto unenvisaged potency and scope third.\u2019\u201d And it recommended specific next steps: (1) making arrangements with Belgium to secure uranium supplies, (2) expanding experiments to make fission possible, suggesting that American industry and private foundations would foot the bill (it was the US government that ultimately did so, a bill that spiraled into today\u2019s equivalent of $23 billion). (3) he proposed that Roosevelt appoint an individual and a committee to act as liaison between the administration and scientific community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Sachs closed out by reading a segment from Francis Aston\u2019s \u201cForty Years of Atomic Theory\u201d, putting special emphasis on the last paragraph:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I think there is no doubt that sub-atomic energy is available all around us, and that one day man will release and control its almost infinite power. We cannot prevent him from doing so and can only hope he will not use it exclusively in blowing up his next-door neighbor.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019Alex,\u2019 said Roosevelt, quickly understanding, \u201cwhat you are after is to see that the Nazis don\u2019t blow us up.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Precisely,\u2019 Sachs said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roosevelt called in Watson. \u2018This requires action\u2019, he told his aide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the rest is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of note, this is not a commentary on whether developing the atomic bomb was right or wrong, but rather a how-to guide on how to move another human into real behavior change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can we learn from Sachs\u2019 approach to storytelling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n