Pamela Wible — A TEDx Salem alum looks back

It’s been quite a ride for Dr. Pamela Wible since she last took our stage.

It was two years ago that Wible stood before a TEDx Salem crowd as founder of the Ide­al Med­ical Care move­ment to talk about the impor­tance of chang­ing the imper­son­al, assem­bly-line men­tal­i­ty that infects the Amer­i­can med­ical care indus­try, for the health not just of patients but of doc­tors them­selves.

It’s a quest that for her began over 10 years ago, in town hall meet­ings where she would stand up and, as she puts it, bare her soul to the very peo­ple who once stood naked before her, seek­ing her patients’ advice in how to devel­op a more inti­mate, more com­pas­sion­ate med­ical care expe­ri­ence.

Her talk was one of the most well received TEDx Salem talks ever, gen­er­at­ing well over 200,000 views since being post­ed on YouTube. Since then, Wible has gone on to spread her mes­sage in inter­views on CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR and else­where. Ear­li­er this year, she was award­ed the 2015 Women Lead­ers in Med­i­cine Award by the Amer­i­can Med­ical Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion. This Novem­ber, she will speak at TEDMED in Palm Springs, Cal­i­for­nia.

Accord­ing to Wible, all the suc­cess is a sign that her mes­sage is res­onat­ing.

“It’s time to talk,” she said, “about the taboo top­ics that are hold­ing us back as a cul­ture.”

Since her talk, more peo­ple are hav­ing “black and white dis­cus­sions,” she said. Patients are frus­trat­ed with their hos­pi­tal and clin­ic expe­ri­ences, and are also begin­ning to rec­og­nize how equal­ly frus­trat­ed doc­tors are, she said. And doc­tors are start­ing to see the toll that the profession’s tra­di­tion­al rig­ors are tak­ing on their own emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal well being.

Over 1 mil­lion peo­ple lose their doc­tor to sui­cide, a sta­tis­tic Wible often cites in her talks. Since speak­ing at TEDx Salem, doc­tors are becom­ing more recep­tive of her mes­sage, she said, and more will­ing to speak up about the pain they endure, a pain that has often been insti­tu­tion­al­ized from med­ical school onward.

“It’s inspir­ing med stu­dents to stand up and refuse to be vic­tim­ized,” she said.

“Peo­ple are will­ing to say it out loud,” she said, “the time has come for the truth.”

Wible cred­its TEDx Salem with help­ing to “break through the media glass ceil­ing,” as she calls it, ampli­fy­ing the thoughts of a female fam­i­ly doc­tor from Eugene, in a media land­scape so often focused on male spe­cial­ists work­ing on the East Coast. Her TEDx Salem talk and accom­pa­ny­ing op-ed was also pub­lished in the Wash­ing­ton Post last sum­mer.

“It brings peo­ple to me,” she said, “in want­i­ng to know more.”

And as she pre­pares for her TEDMED talk, Wible recalls her TEDx Salem expe­ri­ence fond­ly.

“I was on such an emo­tion­al high, I wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly tak­ing it all in,” she said. “I was so proud to be a part of it.”

It real­ly shows you the “pow­er of one new idea,” she said.

 

- To get your tick­ets for TEDx Salem 2015, click here.