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4 | EYEWORLD DAILY NEWS | MAY 6, 2019 ASCRS NEWS to do it can harm both the doctor and the patient, according to Dr. Medina. To do this, a speaker must evoke an emotional response in the listener. Dr. Medina cited several recent studies that show when doctors pre-educate their patients about the risks and benefits of an upcoming procedure, the patients tend to recover more quickly, experience less pain, and are less likely to sue the doctor if some- thing goes wrong. Dr. Medina calls this idea of pre-educating patients "emotional inoculation." Some physicians may scoff at the idea of explaining to the patient all the possible ways a procedure can go wrong, but because this information triggers an emotional response, the patient is more likely to remember it. "The more emotionally competent a given stimulus is, the more likely we are to pay attention to it," Dr. Medina said. There is an additional reason emotional inoculation works in this type of situation: It gives patients a feeling of control over what is happening to them. "It's not aversive stimuli that cause stress; it's the ability to feel in control of the aversive stimuli," Dr. Medina said. "The more out of control the patient felt over the aversive stimuli coming at them, the more likely they were to not remember anything the doctor said and as a direct result, start the litigation process." Start with the gist When educating others, it's best to start with the gist rather than the details, according to Dr. Medi- na. The human brain processes meaning before it processes detail, so presenting the meaning of information first will help it stick in the minds of listeners, he said. One study found that presenting information with the gist first increased recall by 47% compared to presenting the information in a random order. Dr. Medina gave the example of a prehistoric human running into a saber-toothed cat. The first thing the person's brain would care about is whether that cat is a physical threat—not the details of the cat's appearance, like how many teeth it has. "[The brain] does not want to know the number of vertical lines in a saber-toothed cat's mouth before it wants to know if that mouth is going to clamp down on your thigh," Dr. Medina said. "It wants the mean- ing of the mouth before it wants the detail of the mouth." Use chunks In addition to prioritizing emotion and meaning, the human brain likes to break large amounts of information down into discrete chunks. Dr. Medina likens this tendency to eating a meal: Peo- ple consume food by breaking it down into bites, forkfuls, and spoonfuls; they don't devour it all at once. What this means is that when giving a lecture, physicians should divide the talk into short chunks to keep the attendees' attention. The ideal length of time for each chunk is about 10 minutes because studies have shown a person's attention tends to fade after the 10-minute mark. "You should never again give a 40-minute lecture; instead, you should give four 10-minute lectures and do something at the joints," Dr. Medina said. At the "joints," or end of ev- ery 10-minute chunk, the speaker should pull the lens back and look at the bigger picture. "Every 10 minutes, you have to get off of your granularity, and pull the lens way back and give some meaning," Dr. Medina said. "If you can make it emotionally competent, even better." Editors' note: Dr. Medina has no finan- cial interests related to his comments. continued from page 1 ASCRS Executive Director Steve Speares Editorial Editorial Director Amy Goldenberg Senior Staff Writer/ Meetings Editor Ellen Stodola Senior Staff Writer Liz Hillman Contributing Writers Stefanie Petrou Binder, MD Vanessa Caceres Rich Daly Lauren Lipuma Production Managing Editor Stacy Jablonski Graphic Designer Julio Guerrero Graphic Designer Susan Steury Production Manager Cathy Stern Editorial Production Assistant/ Social Media Coordinator Taylor Wise Sales, Sponsorships, and Special Events Jessica Donohoe Shelly Dixon Molly Phillips Joe Dooley Cathy Stern Anne Le FACEBOOK EyeWorldMagazine TWITTER EyeWorldMag INSTAGRAM eyeworldmagazine ASCRS Dr. Medina describes the principles of cognitive neuroscience physicians can use to keep the attention of an audience.

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