How to Bare Their Hot Button (Elementary Doc-Talk)

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

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Doc-Talk)

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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."