From Evidence to Influence: Science in the Age of Misinformation with Dr. Michael Narvey
Dr. Michael Narvey
Neonatologist and Section Head of Neonatology; Vice President, Canadian Paediatric Society; Creator of NICU Musings
In this episode
00:00 Introduction 02:00 Meet Dr. Michael Narvey 03:00 Finding his way to neonatology 07:00 Life in the NICU 11:00 AI and asking "show me the evidence" 14:00 From evidence to national guidelines 19:00 Ask why we do things 22:00 The clinical educator path 23:00 Starting the All Things Neonatal blog 26:00 Promotion without a classic research CV 29:00 Building a following 32:00 Going viral on TikTok 37:00 Social media as an educational tool 40:00 Spotting misinformation: vitamin K 43:00 Natural immunity and vaccines 46:00 Understanding risk: COVID and measles 49:00 Communicating risk to families 52:00 Conflicts of interest and working with industry 57:00 Escaping the echo chamber 1:01:00 Measuring success 1:03:00 Stories of reach 1:05:00 Advice: partner with others and be social 1:09:00 Closing thoughts
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Dr. McGavock: [00:00:00] Here's a quick question for you. If a piece of medical information goes viral, say a claim about vaccines or raw milk or natural immunity, it can reach a million people in a matter of hours. How long does that take for credible correction to catch up? The honest answer is it usually doesn't. The correction almost never travels as far or as fast as the original false claim.
Dr. McGavock: So what do we do about it as emerging scholars? Well, one option is to become the kind of doctor who people actually want to listen to, not because you're lecturing them, but because you showed up on their feed one day with a story about a baby growing inside a woman's liver. A woman's liver. And 5 million people stopped scrolling and started paying attention.
Dr. McGavock: Well, that's the story of Dr. Michael Narvey, also known as NICU Musings. He's a neonatologist and a colleague [00:01:00] of mine, which means he takes care of the smallest, sickest newborns on Earth. He's the head of neonatology at the University of Manitoba in the Department of Pediatrics. He spent nine years on the Canadian Paediatric Society's Fetus and Newborn Committee, five of them as chair.
Dr. McGavock: And then his kids told him he needed to start a TikTok. What happened next is an incredible story about what it actually takes for a real expert to show up on platforms that weren't designed for nuance, and what happens when the public responds. For all emerging scholars, this is your intro to social media and the power that it holds as an emerging scholar.
Dr. McGavock: This is the Emerging Scholar Podcast. I'm Jon McGavock. Let's get into it.
Dr. McGavock: Welcome everyone to the Emerging Scholar Podcast. It is my distinct pleasure to have colleague and social media co-medical education expert, Dr. Mike Narvey with us today. Welcome.
Dr. Narvey: Thank you for having me. It's a joy to be here.
Dr. McGavock: And one of the extremely [00:02:00] few guests that we've had in person, so-
Dr. Narvey: Wow ...
Dr. McGavock: thanks for making it down.
Dr. McGavock: Really appreciate it. So I'm not a physician, as, as our listeners know, and whenever I think about the NICU, there's something I don't think people really appreciate. But in every major hospital across all cities in Canada and the US, there's a room full of the tiniest, most fragile human beings on Earth, and there are doctors there whose careers are built around keeping them safe, keeping them alive.
Dr. McGavock: You're one of those doctors.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: What started you on that journey?
Dr. Narvey: Well, how long do we have? Yeah, it's a great question, and one that I think r- it reflects to a certain degree some of the trajectory of my career, having been sort of accidentally falling into things. You know, where it really begins is when I was a child.
Dr. Narvey: That's why I said, "How long do you have?"
Dr. McGavock: Oh, wow.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Well, in my teen years, I, my parents had a s- another child, and so I found myself, at the age of 13 and two parents working who [00:03:00] got home late, kind of raising, to a certain degree, a young sister.
Dr. McGavock: Oh, wow.
Dr. Narvey: And so, you know, I kinda got the pediatrics bug from caring for my sister and helping raise her and that sort of thing.
Dr. Narvey: And then that sorta subsided. Like, I got into medical school. I knew I wanted to be a doctor, got into medical school, and I wanted nothing other than to deliver babies. That is what I wanted to do.
Dr. McGavock: Wow.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. And so I geared myself entirely towards obstetrics and gynecology.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And then I went off to Toronto in '97, and I remember, like yesterday, being at a delivery, and I asked if- the surgeon, could I scrub out, 'cause I wanted to go see what happened to the baby.
Dr. McGavock: Oh.
Dr. Narvey: And so I followed the baby in the other room, and then I found myself following the baby as, uh, through their neonatal course. And this light bulb went off where I went, "Oh, I think I might like the baby rather than the mother who's carrying the baby." So that sorta sparked it.
Dr. McGavock: Was this, like, the first time you were [00:04:00] in that situation as a student?
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. So at, at first contact, you were like, "Wait a second, I had the wrong dream."
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, and I thought that it was really fascinating. I'd done obstetrics before, just to correct myself. I'd done it before, so I'd certainly- Okay ... seen other babies.
Dr. McGavock: Right.
Dr. Narvey: But there was something about that baby, and they turned out to have a heart defect and a, other anomalies and so forth, and that really got my mind sort of buzzing, like, there's something more here.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm. And so then I pivoted. I actually did pediatrics right after I got back from Toronto, and then I actually applied to 10 obstetric spots. I applied to one pediatric spot, 'cause I kept on telling myself, "It's a whim. It'll pass. You wanna be a- Right ... baby doc- Yeah ... like a, an obstetrician." Yeah. And at the end of the day, as I went around my journey across Canada interviewing, I thought, "Oh my God, I wanna be a pediatrician."
Dr. Narvey: And then I want to take care of babies, and that's sorta how the journey happened.
Dr. McGavock: What was it about that case, do you remember, that made you so curious? Or [00:05:00] it must have fired up that instinct in you to care for something that smaller or someone that's little.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. You know, so this was actually a term baby, believe it or not.
Dr. Narvey: Oh. So this wasn't one of our little tiny ones. But this was a baby that was struggling right from the get-go, was blue, wasn't becoming pink, and I could hear all this commotion off to my right as the neonatal resuscitation team was doing their thing. Yeah. And I'm hearing, "Not getting better," you know, "We need more oxygen.
Dr. Narvey: We need maybe to intubate." And I'm thinking, "Hmm- I need to see what's going on. This is unusual, right? Mm-hmm. So followed them over, and like I said, I was just in awe, and I thought, "Oh, this is really cool." You know, and I felt bad for the baby, of course, but, but the medicine, I thought, this is really interesting how they're working systematically through the problem, trying to turn things around.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And yeah, so for that reason, it really sparked my interest.
Dr. McGavock: I think there, there are only a few areas in medicine where you have that opportunity to do a lot of really good [00:06:00] things in a short period of time-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. McGavock: and then see the benefits of it.
Dr. Narvey: Oh, yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And the NICU is one of those places.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, and if you're someone that needs that instant gratification-
Dr. Narvey: like, like me- ... I like things to move. Yeah. You know, I think, yeah, you're 100% right. I mean, some of our patients, of course, they do hang around for a very long time, months, you know, and you don't see necessarily what happens to these kids until much later in their course, like in childhood- Mm-hmm ... or even as adults.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: You don't know for sure what they're gonna be like. But a lot of the excitement, if you will, does happen in those first three days.
Dr. McGavock: And the, the few times that I've been in there for nephews-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. McGavock: there's a huge team environment. Mm-hmm. It, it just feels so different than other parts of the hospital.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. We are a team-based care team- Okay ... which is redundant, but yeah, we are really a team that truly is a team in, in every sense of the word that, you know, I rely heavily on our dieticians and our pharmacists and our nurses. I don't wanna leave anybody out, our social [00:07:00] workers and- Yeah ... you know, residents.
Dr. Narvey: And the researchers are out there, who do primarily, maybe they're cl- clinician scientists that are fueling us with that knowledge- Mm ... and knowledge translation in order to allow us to practice on a daily basis. It's a real team sport.
Dr. McGavock: That's great, and we are gonna dive into that knowledge. But one thing that I've seen on your im- super impressive social media platform is that you refer to these babies as small warriors.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: Oh man, do I love that.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: What, where did that come from, and why do you refer to these little ones as small warriors?
Dr. Narvey: Do you know, I'd love to s- tell you exactly where I got that from, but they're, these babies are often referred to as small but mighty. Okay. And I think that one of the things that I often will teach the medical students or residents, and e- even parents I'll tell them, is, you know, babies, number one, they're not as fragile as you think.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Like, they're pretty tough.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: You know? And secondly, the amount of stuff that you can throw at them, or life can throw at them, the [00:08:00] challenges, an adult would never make it through.
Dr. McGavock: Nope.
Dr. Narvey: You know? Because the adults have these bad coronary arteries that are ravaged by smoke and lungs that, you know, smoke, drugs, alcohol, you know, liver's not functioning well.
Dr. Narvey: These babies are born otherwise well.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And so their capacity for these babies to recover is remarkable, and that's what makes them little warriors or small warriors is that they can get through some incredible challenges.
Dr. McGavock: Well, you know my wife, who's a pediatric surgeon. Of course. And she says that all the time, "You won't even see where I operated."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. Because that skin bounces back, and those little ones bounce back and-
Dr. Narvey: Actually, I had the pleasure of working with your wife on a case recently, and I actually went to the operating room and I watched her operate- For how long? ... about 15 minutes.
Dr. McGavock: Okay. '
Dr. Narvey: Cause I was very concerned about this particular baby.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And the thing that I wanna tell the audience is, a- I'm not saying this because this is your wife, but- ... the hole through [00:09:00] which she was working to see into that abdomen- Oh,
Dr. McGavock: I can't imagine ...
Dr. Narvey: it was so small. She had her hands- Yeah ... working within this little space, and I thought to myself, "How on earth can people do that?"
Dr. Narvey: But the reason why they barely have a scar is 'cause the amount of opening that she's doing is so small-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: that it, it's amazing.
Dr. McGavock: It's incredible. It is. It is fascinating.
Dr. McGavock: Now, in the space of neonatology in this day and age-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. McGavock: one thing that I find really fascinating is that you're in this super high-stakes setting. This is one of the places where I think we have some of the best evidence.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: We have a ton of research that's happening. You're dealing with families that are absolutely terrified.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: It's supposed to be the most exciting part of their life. They're sleep-deprived. They're concerned. Now they're googling, and they're coming to you with all kinds of information. [00:10:00] So what is that like for you? Are you currently the head of the NICU? I took down a
Dr. Narvey: year ago,
Dr. McGavock: yeah. And so you've got this tension.
Dr. McGavock: You're delivering evidence for your whole team, but at the same time, you're getting this information from parents that's saying, "Well, what about this? What about that? I saw this." And now with AI, I'm sure it's amplified even more.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: How is you and your team dealing with that balance?
Dr. Narvey: Well, I would suggest that probably different people would approach it in different ways.
Dr. Narvey: I tend to, for the sicker kids, I do a little preemptive suggestions. So I'll say to them, for example, if it's, like, a rare syndrome or a really, really tiny baby, I'll say, "You might not want to just google what the outcome is," because, you know, there's an old expression that in business if something bad happens, you tell seven people.
Dr. Narvey: If you have a good experience, you tell one, right?
Dr. McGavock: Right.
Dr. Narvey: And so- Right ... the Internet's no different.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: You know, like, somebody has a lousy experience in the NICU-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: they tell the world, right? Mm-hmm. Somebody has a good experience, they might tell their friend.
Dr. McGavock: Right.
Dr. Narvey: Right?
Dr. McGavock: Right. [00:11:00] Yeah, yeah. Or they tell you.
Dr. Narvey: Or they tell me.
Dr. McGavock: They tell you.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Yeah. So the problem is, you know, if you just google about, you know, syndrome X or 23-week infants, you're gonna see parents Horrific stories the hospital screwed up. So what I'll say to them is, "Try to resist googling. We've got some good information. I can point you in the direction of some literature if you have any questions."
Dr. Narvey: So you can do a little bit of preemptive work. But you're right, in the world of AI, and I use it, you probably use it-
Dr. McGavock: Yep ...
Dr. Narvey: but we always have to remember that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And in the world of AI, interestingly, I was just listening to a podcast on the way here about a neonatologist who's a specialist in AI- Okay
Dr. Narvey: application in neonatology. Oh, yeah. And that's what he was talking about. And, you know, one of the things that we have to be very careful about is we have to understand, and this is important for your listeners to hear, and actually they're probably more educated than I am, but you often hear people say when they punch something into the AI platform, Claude or ChatGPT, whatever one you wanna use, they'll say, [00:12:00] "Oh, it's thinking."
Dr. Narvey: Well, no, it's not thinking.
Dr. McGavock: No.
Dr. Narvey: No, it's processing.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And it's processing probability.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: Right?
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And so at the end of the day, what you get spit out is probability. AI can't know for sure it's that. It's just saying, based on these keywords and whatnot, this is what we think is going on. The one thing you then have to be careful about is sometimes, and some people call it hallucinations, but I don't know if they're really hallucinations as much as sometimes the references that ChatGPT or Claude or, or Manus or whatever are using-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm
Dr. Narvey: to generate the information that you're now coming to me as the doctor saying, "Well, I read this this morning over coffee."
Dr. McGavock: Yes.
Dr. Narvey: Well, it may be that the references either are the wrong references or that's not what those references say. So, you know, I would say in conclusion, I think we live in a world where you can't escape it now.
Dr. Narvey: It's here. It's not going anywhere. Parents are gonna use it. And what you have to do is instead of minimizing and telling them, "No, no, no, you listen to your [00:13:00] doctor," we need as, as physicians, we need to begin to engage and say, "Well, show me. Where did you find that?" Yeah. "I wanna see that."
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. "
Dr. Narvey: I didn't know that."
Dr. Narvey: Let's talk about it.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: Let's talk about it. And-
Dr. McGavock: The place where you and I actually met and spent more time kind of discussing this work was at a Canadian Paediatric Society meeting.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: I wanna say we were, like, in Ch- Charlottetown or something.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And I didn't realize, but you were helping develop guidelines as from the CPS.
Dr. McGavock: So you've been in that position where you are vetting the best evidence so that you and your team can make the best decisions for the little ones, these small warriors in front of you.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: The parents are getting open access information. Mm-hmm. Some of it may be grounded in the guidelines.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: And now we have this kind of dichotomy between there's guidelines that are out there, and then we have AI that's feeding us a bunch of things.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: Maybe let's go back to you starting the guidelines.
Dr. Narvey: Mm.
Dr. McGavock: What drew you into the CPS and saying, "I wanna be part of this group that's helping with [00:14:00] the decision-making based on the best clinical evidence"? Where did that desire for information come from? 'Cause I think that might have been part of- Sure
Dr. McGavock: your origin story into where you are right now.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, so that's a great question. There was a neonatologist out in Edmonton who was a colleague of mine, 'cause I worked in Edmonton for six years. Sure. I was trained out there. His name was Thierry Lacaze.
Dr. McGavock: Ah, yes, okay.
Dr. Narvey: And you know Thierry.
Dr. McGavock: I know, yes.
Dr. Narvey: And Thierry was chair of the Fetus and Newborn Committee at the C- CPS.
Dr. Narvey: I had moved back to Winnipeg at this point, but he called me up one day and he said, "I want you to apply to be o- a committee member on the CPS." And, and he said, "I think you'd be good at it." And I said-
Dr. McGavock: What do you think he saw in you?
Dr. Narvey: Well, we worked together, and so he knew, you know, I'd been a director of two, of level two units caring for mildly preterm infants, moderately sick infants, and had run another program in Edmonton.
Dr. Narvey: So he saw that I could be a leader some, some capacity. I, I later discovered that I think, you know, he was a very strategic guy and thought- ... y- [00:15:00] you know, one day I would replace him as chair. Which is what happened. He was looking down the road. And so, you know, the inspiration for me saying yes was I was really I really struggled with a practice in neonatology that had been around since about '93 or something like that, and the practice was called the car seat test, which you had to place preterm infants in, and y- you watch them for about 90 minutes in the car seat, and then if they fail it, they can't go home.
Dr. Narvey: If they pass it, then they can go home. They were strapped in the car seat, and the nurses would all say, "Shh," when you walked by. They were to be sleeping, and the idea was that when they were no longer laying flat on their back, when they were sort of semi-recumbent, maybe these preterm infants would have dips in their heart rate or dips in their oxygen saturations, and, you know, that their airways might not stay as open as if they were laying- Yes
Dr. Narvey: on their back.
Dr. McGavock: Right.
Dr. Narvey: And so I really had a fundamental problem with the evidence that was ever developed to support that practice. Now, that's a whole other [00:16:00] podcast, but what happened was I'd been griping about it for so long, and I said to Thierry Lacaze, said, "So if I come on the committee, can I write a statement on car seats?"
Dr. McGavock: Love it.
Dr. Narvey: And he said- So good ... he said, "For sure. You can put an intent in, and we can get it through." So it went through, and so talk about impact. I'm gonna brag for a second- Yeah, yeah ... because this is super cool. Let's hear it. Like, the timing of this is really cool. So what happened was I wrote the statement, researched the evidence, as you say, and after looking at the totality of the evidence, I thought, "You know what?
Dr. Narvey: There really isn't a solid foundation. It's not a great predictive tool. About one in 10 kids that fail will pass if you do it again right away," and when you're talking about mortality, predicting mortality- ... a 10% error rate, like, that we're gonna trust this test? Right? Yeah. So anyway, that was just one reason, but anyway, so we recommend getting rid of the test.
Dr. Narvey: Overall, vast majority of the units in Canada stop after this comes out, okay? Wow.
Dr. McGavock: Amazing.
Dr. Narvey: The US continues doing it, and I hear from... 'Cause I used to serve as a [00:17:00] liaison member on the American equivalent. You'll love the name of this. The American equivalent, I'll get you to pronounce it, actually.
Dr. McGavock: Okay.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, so our committee in Canada was the Fetus and Newborn Committee.
Dr. Narvey: The American equivalent was the Committee of Fetus and Newborn, and it's COFN, okay?
Dr. McGavock: COFN.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. How would you pronounce that?
Dr. McGavock: Coffin.
Dr. Narvey: Exactly. Yeah. So the first time I joined the committee they said, "No, no, it's COFN."
Dr. McGavock: Right.
Dr. Narvey: I said, "Well, that's not what it looks like." Anyway, so the Americans discussed maybe abandoning this after we wrote the statement, but they didn't, but about two weeks ago, I get an email from a physician in California in the Kaiser Permanente healthcare network.
Dr. Narvey: Now, the reason that's important is because in the Kaiser Permanente healthcare network in California, which has millions and millions of people in it-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: they abandoned the car seat test And one of the physicians who was part of that group that got it removed wrote me an [00:18:00] email to thank me. Oh, that's great.
Dr. Narvey: He said, in large part, the, the CPS statement gave us the power and the strength to say we're gonna stop it. And so I thought, given the tensions that exist in the US and Canada right now-
Dr. McGavock: Right,
Dr. Narvey: right ... something that we did here in Canada- Yeah ... had impact south of the border. That's amazing. So I thought
Dr. McGavock: that was
Dr. Narvey: really cool.
Dr. McGavock: That's amazing. He did not listen to the coffin committee.
Dr. Narvey: No.
Dr. McGavock: Uh, well, and I think for our residents and for our grad students- Mm-hmm ... you brought up a super important part of your training, which is to keep your eyes open and your ears open for those decisions that you make at the bedside that seem to you a little bit off, right?
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. Like, where do we get the evidence for the 90-minute car seat test, right? For you, it was just like, "This is ridiculous." Yeah. For all the things that we're doing, like, this is absolutely ridiculous. So residents, trainees, pay attention throughout your day because there's gonna be these little nuggets where you can say, "Well, let's actually dive deeper into this."
Dr. Narvey: You know what? And, and you're 100% correct, and what I would [00:19:00] say to the trainees is don't be afraid to ask, like, "Why are we doing things?" You know? It's not offensive. Mm-hmm. And sometimes you discover when you really look at it, they'll... Somebody says, "Well, we've, we've done it this way for 50 years." Well, but why?
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: Well, because there's solid research. Oh, really? What kind of research, you know? And then you go back, and you know, one of my favorite things, and this is probably now in your world as well, I mean, one of the things that I'm always stupefied by is we will... Like, whether it's nutrition or stuff to do with exercise, obesity, there will be recommendations that have been around since the dawn of time.
Dr. McGavock: Yep.
Dr. Narvey: Right?
Dr. McGavock: Yep.
Dr. Narvey: And so there will be some study that comes out involving 50,000 individuals. It's multinational. It's perfect-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: in every way except maybe a few little problems. You get academics discussing it. They tear it apart, and they say, "We don't believe this. We're not changing," right?
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And then you know what I [00:20:00] say? I say, "Hmm, that's interesting." Say, "What was the research that led to this practice in the first place?" And it's, like, an observational study of th- 30 people that- Yeah, yeah ... from 1967, right?
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And so we hold on to those things that we believe to be true-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: and we don't apply the same standard to the initial research that brought these practices in, and I think you know why.
Dr. Narvey: Partly it's because we humans don't like to change.
Dr. McGavock: No. Yeah. No, and that clinical inertia could be anything. Yeah. We all have the things we believe in.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: It's thicker than peanut butter.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And it is so hard to get entire communities to change. The one thing I hear often in Manitoba is, "Well, that might work over there, but this is Manitoba."
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. And we're different. It won't work here. Somehow we're different. But-
Dr. McGavock: Amazingly, you sat on the committee, [00:21:00] you changed the guidelines, and- Almost- ... all of your colleagues bought in right away. So I think that's impressive, and I think there's a story to go down there. However, you're leading committees, you're making impactful change, you're seeing clinical practice change. So as someone who says, "I wanna see the immediate impact of my work"- Yeah
Dr. McGavock: that's gotta be crazy satisfying- Mm-hmm ... to have your colleagues change their practice. But then at some point you decide, "I'm gonna start writing a blog."
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And then s- shortly after that, your kids come to you with a crazy idea. So-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. McGavock: let's hear first about NICU Musings.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, so the, so the foray into blogging, and then the rest of it followed, it really came from I would say a, a sort of an aha moment where I noticed I loved teaching.
Dr. Narvey: You know, when I started off as a neonatologist, I was specifically hired actually to do clinical work and to teach. Hmm. I, I... Literally I was told, imagine this, and it was a while back, but it was 2004. I was [00:22:00] specifically told, "We don't want you doing research. We don't want you doing administration."
Dr. McGavock: Hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: We need somebody who can teach medical students, residents- Okay
Dr. Narvey: trainees, fellows, nurses, and we need p- someone to do clinical work. That's your wheelhouse." Wow. "That's what you're doing," right? And it was a different model where it was sort of the, a thought of like the whole group of neonatologists have a responsibility to do research, clinical administration, education.
Dr. Narvey: Not everybody has to do all four. You can have groups of people that do different things. So-
Dr. McGavock: I love that. Who made that call?
Dr. Narvey: His name was Johnny Venarta.
Dr. McGavock: All right.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Way
Dr. McGavock: to go, Johnny.
Dr. Narvey: So J- Johnny was a mentor of mine, and we're still in touch.
Dr. McGavock: What did Johnny see in you as a teacher?
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Like, what else was going on there?
Dr. Narvey: I think probably it was just the feedback. You know, I used to get re- really good feedback about my teaching. Yeah. And he got wind of it and said, you know, "We need someone who has skills in teaching," and so that's what he saw, right? So what happens is, because you asked me how I [00:23:00] get to the blog and then the rest, so what happened was I was doing teaching in classrooms, and you would teach 10 residents, or maybe you were- if you were lucky, you sat in a medical school class and you taught 70 people.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And you know, I thought to myself, "There's a world out there, and there's this burgeoning social media environment, and people are using it to share pictures and to share..." Facebook was, you know, being used to share pictures of your trip to Mexico.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Narvey: I thought maybe there's a place for education.
Dr. Narvey: And so where it started, and I love telling this story, it started, the blog started because of Minecraft and a puppy.
Dr. McGavock: All right. Okay, let's go.
Dr. Narvey: And the reason was that my son, who was four or five at the time, he was... Yeah, he was five. He came home one day and he said, "Dad," because he loved Minecraft. Yeah. He goes, "Dad, I wanna write a blog on Minecraft."
Dr. Narvey: And I said, "What?" [00:24:00] And I thought, "I don't know a thing about blogging." And he said, "Yeah, we, we're gonna write a blog. Like, I really think this will be fun." I go, "Okay. What do you want the blog about?" So, you know, we have that conversation. But then I thought, you know what? This is a great opportunity for, like, a learning project for my son and I.
Dr. Narvey: I don't know how to blog.
Dr. McGavock: Where did he find out about blogs?
Dr. Narvey: The young ones, they learn fast, right? Yeah, they learn
Dr. McGavock: fast.
Dr. Narvey: So what happens is he and I spend some time researching platforms and I find, of course, a free platform 'cause I think, "I'm not paying for this. This'll be- Yeah. ... he's five years old. We'll be done in, like, two minutes."
Dr. Narvey: But anyway, so we, we write a couple Minecraft blogs. They go nowhere. So then there's a puppy. The reason the puppy comes in is because we had a puppy, Monty, who's no longer a puppy. He's still alive. There you go. And Monty would not sleep. Like, he... We tried to crate train him. 4:00 in the morning till 5:00 in the morning, every single morning, he's barking, waking up the house.
Dr. Narvey: So I would just, when he started barking, I'd get up. So morning after morning, I'm answering emails. And then one morning, I just didn't wanna answer any more emails. [00:25:00] And I thought, "I'll read an article." I read an article, and I really didn't like the article. And I thought, "You know what? I know how to blog."
Dr. McGavock: Yes.
Dr. Narvey: And I thought, "I'm gonna write an article on this topic," and so I did. And then from there I realized, I published it and nobody read it. And the reason nobody read it was because I realized that there really aren't that many followers on wordpress.com. So then I thought, "I need distribution." And that led me to then Twitter and Facebook.
Dr. McGavock: Oh,
Dr. Narvey: okay. And so I realized that I could use those as distribution of links to the blog. So I did that. And then, and then along came the evolution to TikTok and Instagram and-
Dr. McGavock: Cool ...
Dr. Narvey: and I'm not sure, I think you might know this story because I think I've shared this at Ask.
Dr. McGavock: Well, I think, yeah, I think we do need to share that story.
Dr. McGavock: But you've said that as a physician blogger you need rugged individualism.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: No playbook, no institutional support.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: It- it's not going into your tenure and promotion, which some people really worry about.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: What, what keeps you [00:26:00] going on the rugged path?
Dr. Narvey: Well, so one thing that you should know is, first of all, the rugged individualism, that's not my quote by the way.
Dr. McGavock: Okay.
Dr. Narvey: That is from a 2015 paper, and I've used the quote the, 'cause I've given the presentation before about the rugged blogger or something like that. So- Mm ... there was a paper, it was a qualitative study, and it looked at, I think, 15 largely pediatricians who were doing blogs.
Dr. McGavock: Oh, okay.
Dr. Narvey: And wanted to know sort of what kept them in the game.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Like, why are they doing this? And they saw themselves sort of as these rugged frontier-like people at the time. Yeah. That they were on the forefront. Yeah. They didn't know what was going on. And so I sort of borrowed from that paper. And interestingly, about, I think it was 2018, we're supposed to get academic promotion, right?
Dr. Narvey: Like, we're supposed to seek academic promotion. Yeah. And I was kind of dragging my heels on it, and I hadn't really gotten around to doing it. And then one day I got really pushed. Somebody said, "You really should think about this." [00:27:00] So I sort of reluctantly had a meeting, and when I showed the person my CV, they said to me, "You know, you're not like a classic heavy research-based guy, but tell me more about this blog, and tell me about Twitter and Facebook and your thousands of users."
Dr. Narvey: And I said, "Yeah, sure, we can talk about that." And they said, "You need to write about that." So I'll tell you, advice for your listeners. Yes. This stuff matters because when I wrote my binder for application to associate professor- I was advised to highlight all of this knowledge translation I was doing, which I did.
Dr. Narvey: And in the letter that I got after getting my promotion, which I've actually posted to Facebook- Okay ... at some point, the snapshot from the letter, it said, "In particular, the committee was amazed or inspired by the amount of knowledge translation through a very innovative way that Dr. Narvey [00:28:00] has done."
Dr. McGavock: That's awesome.
Dr. Narvey: And it was largely on that basis that I got promoted- Got it ... to associate professor.
Dr. McGavock: So listeners, it is important.
Dr. Narvey: It's legitimate.
Dr. McGavock: It is legitimate. I think I read somewhere that at some point you got an email from a teacher in Little Rock, Arkansas. Oh,
Dr. Narvey: it's amazing. Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. Can you tell me
Dr. Narvey: more about that?
Dr. Narvey: That's my favorite story. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah. So that was around 2015, 2016.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. '
Dr. Narvey: Cause something I get asked a lot is, "Well, how much money do you make off this?" Or, you know, "How big is your team?" Like, you know, interestingly, not infrequently, maybe a little less now, but I used to get through LinkedIn or through direct emails, I'd get talent agencies saying, "We would like to find out how we can support your organization.
Dr. Narvey: We think that we could elevate you and monetize." And I always say, "I, I'm an N equals one-
Dr. McGavock: Yeah ...
Dr. Narvey: organization, and I earn a good wage doing what I do. I don't need to augment it with that." So- You know, I wasn't earning a living off it.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: It was starting to increasingly take more time, [00:29:00] because as you amass more followers and they're all asking you questions, not questions, 'cause I should state this, not just because i- in case the college is listening, but you don't give out medical information.
Dr. McGavock: Exactly.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. You know, yeah, you don't do that. But I'd get questions, you know, about the papers. You know, they'd say I'd post a paper on a baby with sepsis and- Mm-hmm ... and somebody would say, "Oh, was it the cerebral spinal fluid and the blood?" And sure, I can answer that. That's just factual. But as you get to the point where you're having thousands of comments, you know- Yeah
Dr. Narvey: you can't keep up with it, right?
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: So I sort of reached a point where I was starting to think, you know, maybe like this has become too big.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And so I thought, you know, maybe it's time to stop. So as I'm mulling this over, I wake up one morning, 5:00 AM, because of the dog.
Dr. McGavock: Monty.
Dr. Narvey: Monty. Wake up, and I have an email from a teacher from Little Rock, Arkansas, and says, "We're doing a class project."
Dr. Narvey: And he says, "With your permission, I would like to reach out to you with a second email sharing with you [00:30:00] questions that a student who's 12 years old or 13 years old has for you." He says, "We're doing careers as part of the grade seven curriculum."
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. "
Dr. Narvey: And one of the students chose neonatology, and the reason he chose neonatology was because he reads your blog."
Dr. Narvey: That's- And I wrote him back and I said, "How did he find my blog?" And he said, "He has multiple siblings and/or cousins that were born premature, and he wanted to learn more about it, and he found your blog."
Dr. McGavock: Unbelievable.
Dr. Narvey: And so he sent me these questions about answering, much like we're doing today, like just question and answer.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And I thought, "Holy smokes." I thought, "I'm writing something, and it's being digested by a 12-year-old child," which made me be very careful about what I'm putting out there.
Dr. McGavock: No, but also how good you are at doing it.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Right?
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Like, that's incredible.
Dr. Narvey: Inspiring another generation,
Dr. McGavock: you know? But you're taking a scientific paper, which is v- challenging- Right
Dr. McGavock: for most people to read. Right. And a 12-year-old is digesting it and saying, "You know, this helps me understand my nephew, my [00:31:00] sister."
Dr. Narvey: 100%. Unbelievable. And, and that's what you need to do. Yeah. I mean, if you're in this space, and I think we'll probably get into it, but yeah, you need to recognize, like, who's your audience?
Dr. Narvey: And your audience may be different based on the platform you're on.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: You know, like I can tell you the audience that I have on LinkedIn are extremely professional.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And so I will aim in terms of my commentary on science is it's a much higher level of commentary than it would be, let's say, on a TikTok, you know, or an Instagram post.
Dr. McGavock: Totally.
Dr. Narvey: You know, gearing it for different audiences. And but at the, at the end of the day, for me, it's always been about education and thinking, "What if one person is impacted by this- Mm ... in a positive way?"
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: Like- 150,000 people could say, "Go take a hike, we don't believe you." But if one person-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: One kid ...
Dr. Narvey: one kid benefits-
Dr. McGavock: Yeah, that gives me
Dr. Narvey: goosebumps ... then it's, then it's worth it.[00:32:00]
Dr. McGavock: Well, let's talk about December 2021. So more than one person responded to something on TikTok.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: Tell us that story.
Dr. Narvey: If it's the one I'm thinking of, so-
Dr. McGavock: A baby.
Dr. Narvey: And
Dr. McGavock: a liver.
Dr. Narvey: And a liver. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought you were gonna say, yeah. So what happened was, I think you gotta go back, 'cause m- I have to thank my kids.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm. My kids are Adam and Lauren, and I told Lauren I would give her a shout-out today. All right.
Dr. McGavock: Shout-out to Lauren.
Dr. Narvey: So starting probably about June of 2020, in the pandemic, my kids were on me telling me about TikTok. They said, "Dad, you gotta get on TikTok." Like, "This is the next evolution." And they showed me TikTok, and I went, "Are you crazy?"
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: Like, I'm not dancing and lip-syncing and-
Dr. McGavock: Yeah ...
Dr. Narvey: and doing that. Like, no.
Dr. McGavock: No.
Dr. Narvey: 100% no.
Dr. McGavock: How many guys were your age?
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Exactly. I go, "You got the wrong guy."
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: So jump ahead a year to June 2021. We're in the thick of the pandemic. I am [00:33:00] going out of my mind, and I'm sitting on my back deck, and I caved. They were on me again.
Dr. Narvey: "Dad, you gotta do it. You gotta
Dr. McGavock: do it." You got all this time on
Dr. Narvey: your hands. And I, I got all this time. You might as well. So I did it, and I have to say, like the very first post, it was just like an introduction. I got thousands of views, and I went, "Huh.
Dr. McGavock: Hmm." What was the first one?
Dr. Narvey: Oh, it was literally just a, "Hi, I'm Dr.
Dr. Narvey: Narvey." "I'm gonna talk about neonatology, baby stuff, obstetrical stuff," 'cause I still was passionate about obstetrics. Mm-hmm. And, and I said, "I will be sharing that on this platform," and got, I got 3,000 or 4,000 views, and I thought, "Huh."
Dr. McGavock: Peop- people love babies.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. I'm like, "That's interesting." So then what happened then, I mean, I could talk for a while about the liver.
Dr. Narvey: So what happened was, you know, I had a few posts that did really well.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And then I'm on Twitter one day, it was still called Twitter back then, and I see this video of somebody showing a fetus that is actually, it's an ectopic pregnancy. Yeah. And it's a fetus that's growing in a liver. [00:34:00] And, and I thought, "That is-"
Dr. McGavock: Unbelievable
Dr. Narvey: "that's unbelievable." And if you've seen the video, like that's pretty much the look on my face. Yeah. Like the fetus was in the liver. Yeah. So what happens is that video blew up. Like I don't know how many millions in the end it wound up with, but-
Dr. McGavock: 5.3 ...
Dr. Narvey: yeah, millions and millions and millions of videos. And I get a phone call about- And actually, I think it's even higher.
Dr. Narvey: So I posted it twice. Okay. I think the second one was 5.3. I think it was at least 15 million or something. Wow. But I get, I get a phone call from a guy, comes up as Michigan one day, and we all get spam. Mm-hmm. But I thought, Michigan, that's interesting. So I answer the phone. It was a reporter from Newsweek Magazine.
Dr. McGavock: No way.
Dr. Narvey: And he introduced himself. He says, "Yeah, I saw your video." He says, "I want to interview you about the video." So I get interviewed. And then New York Times, and then USA Today, and-
Dr. McGavock: Whoa ...
Dr. Narvey: and all of a sudden I get a phone call from... I'll tell you to the coolest part, but I, [00:35:00] I get a phone call from the Children's Hospital Foundation, 'cause they track stuff like this- Mm-hmm
Dr. Narvey: like impact. And by, by about a week they said, I think it was 186 news outlets across the globe had been covering this story. And the highlight for me was I get a FaceTime from Saudi Arabia, and it's one of my ex-trainees. And he says, "Dr. Narvey, stay on the phone. You gotta see this." And so he has his phone on the TV.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. And he starts shouting, "You're on my TV." Al Jazeera was covering the story with my face on the TV- Oh my God ... for Saudi Arabia. That's so
Dr. McGavock: great.
Dr. Narvey: So that was, that was great. And I mean, that really showed me the impact that you can have with these short segment snippets of information. And you gotta be quick, you know, because you only had, at the time I think it was a maximum of three minutes.
Dr. Narvey: Now you can do 10 I think. Okay. But yeah, it was about maximum three minutes, so you had to get your point across fast.
Dr. McGavock: Were you practicing?
Dr. Narvey: [00:36:00] No, I never practiced.
Dr. McGavock: You just straight shot?
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. I n- I know people that have like teleprompters in front of them. Yeah, yeah,
Dr. McGavock: yeah,
Dr. Narvey: yeah. I just would do it like one take, you know, just try to spit it out, you know, and-
Dr. McGavock: It's great.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: You're very good at it.
Dr. Narvey: Oh, thank you.
Dr. McGavock: So who was more excited, you or the kids as the numbers are rolling?
Dr. Narvey: At the beginning, it was definitely the kids until their friends all started following me, and then they would get embarrassed. My daughter and I went to Comic-Con f- a few years ago. And we're walking through Comic-Con, it's packed, and a woman stopped me and she said, "You're NICU Musings."
Dr. Narvey: And Lauren was like, "Oh my God."
Dr. McGavock: Oh my God. You're more popular than Wolverine.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: So-
Dr. Narvey: Not quite ...
Dr. McGavock: what kind of doors opened after that?
Dr. Narvey: Well, lots. Yeah, so I guess because I was, in hindsight, I was that rugged individualist pioneer kind of guy in the early teens. I got invited to Stockholm, Sweden in '17 to give a talk on social [00:37:00] media and the application of educa- as an educational tool.
Dr. Narvey: That was really cool. And then three years ago with actually the Incubator Podcast group and another friend of mine named Prem Fort, who's a neonatologist from Florida.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: At the Pediatric Academic Society, we were accepted to do a workshop on how to teach others to get involved in academic social media.
Dr. Narvey: I did the same workshop in Dubai.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: Uh, you know, so I've traveled the globe. I've been able to go around and make a bit of a side gig, if you will, out of travel. And so that's the door that's been opened. And, and the other thing that's really opened, and this is the altruistic side of me, is I realized, and actually bec- this is really good data for you to know.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: One of the questions that I also started to wonder about was what impact can this actually have on boosting the visibility of great research that Canadians are doing?
Dr. McGavock: That's awesome.
Dr. Narvey: And to that end, one of my colleagues in [00:38:00] Calgary was kind enough to get from the publisher a paper that I'd written a blog about, and I was able to see the downloads over, I think, a three or four-month period.
Dr. Narvey: His paper had o- from the publisher's site had 67 downloads in about four months. I think the abstract was 304 times. On day one, my blog post on it had 18,000 views.
Dr. McGavock: That's crazy.
Dr. Narvey: And I just thought they go hand in hand. This is about a tool that could be used to promote and translate knowledge for people so that it actually gets used.
Dr. McGavock: So we're gonna put this in the show notes. It's @NICU_musings. Mm-hmm. That's your Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn blog post.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And when I've gone through it, what I see, in addition to bringing the research out to the research world, I've seen [00:39:00] three different pillars out of the work that you do. You have these jaw-dropping cases-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm
Dr. McGavock: that are unbelievable, that are gonna capture our attention, and people wanna go see it, like an ectopic pregnancy in the liver.
Dr. Narvey: Right.
Dr. McGavock: The second one is genuine medical information, where you're breaking down complex parts of what you do as a neonatologist, but also just medicine and science generally.
Dr. McGavock: And then third, and this is where I wanna go down a path-
Dr. Narvey: Mm ...
Dr. McGavock: you are starting the war on disinformation. Now, I don't know if that's strategic or not, to have those three different approaches.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: But the way I look at it is, it brings people in. Like, the first pillar, these jaw-dropping ones, it's like, "Oh, I'm gonna follow this guy, 'cause this is really cool."
Dr. McGavock: But then the next one, you're dismantling some things about i- you expose your baby to this, and they're gonna get cancer, for example.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: Is that a strategic move on your part? Is- Yeah ... or is that just something that has naturally emerged?
Dr. Narvey: Uh, it's not a straightforward answer. I [00:40:00] would say that probably the reason that you find three pillars is because that's what I naturally gravitate to.
Dr. Narvey: I am someone that if I see something that it- I think is ridiculous, I wanna call people out for it.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. You know? Do,
Dr. Narvey: do you
Dr. McGavock: have an example, a recent example of one?
Dr. Narvey: I, I think I posted something a little while ago on vitamin K. When I hear people talk about, "I only want the natural product, and I don't want the artificial," and I, you know, and- Someone
Dr. McGavock: withheld vitamin K.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think to myself, people really need to understand what's going on. You know, there's a... I did a post a long time ago, I think, on vitamin K, because there was a, what's his name? It's escaping me. There's a, a natural, or he's an osteopathic medicine person, I think out of California.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And I discovered him a long time ago. And do you remember President Biden had listed, like, the top 10 disinformation people on the internet? Mm-hmm. And he was, I think, number one.
Dr. McGavock: Wow.
Dr. Narvey: Um, and he sells, like, vitamin supplements and all this, and his name's on the tip of [00:41:00] my tongue. But anyway, he had been talking about how you shouldn't take vitamin K.
Dr. Narvey: You should only get it from his site. And when you actually dug into the literature he was sourcing or the researcher he was quoting, this guy had never done research with vitamin K. Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And-
Dr. McGavock: Yeah ...
Dr. Narvey: sort of rubbed me the wrong way, and so I thought, you know, "I've gotta say something about that." So I think there's that.
Dr. Narvey: I will say this, you know, I delved into the vaccine hesitant, I won't use the more common term - Okay. Yeah ... but the vaccine hesitant world about 10 years ago. And I like to tell people I lost three days of my life because- There are so many big groups out there with tens of thousands of followers that are just waiting.
Dr. Narvey: They're trolling. They're waiting for somebody to come out and provide some evidence. And what happened was they would just bombard me with terrible research papers that were full of holes, [00:42:00] flaws, and you can't keep up.
Dr. McGavock: To convince you?
Dr. Narvey: To convince me I'm wrong.
Dr. McGavock: Right.
Dr. Narvey: Okay. And then the thing is, because I can't keep up with that, what happens is you stop responding, and then they start saying, "See?
Dr. Narvey: He has nothing to say."
Dr. McGavock: Oh.
Dr. Narvey: Right? Oh. And so although you entered the discussion thinking, "I'm gonna show you that your logic is flawed-"
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: Right?
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: You exit it feeling like, "I can't keep up with this." Mm. And you just accept defeat. So i- it's a big world out there.
Dr. McGavock: It's their full-time job.
Dr. Narvey: It's their full-time job.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. Then maybe a red flag to our ris- listeners, if anyone says, "This podcast is sponsored by AG1..." Or, "You gotta buy these vitamins only from me"-
Dr. Narvey: Yeah ...
Dr. McGavock: then maybe turn the channel. Yeah. So can we go through a couple of these? Yeah. 'Cause I found these fascinating, and I find you do a phenomenal job. So the first one, this trick that I've seen over and over again, and RFK Jr.
Dr. McGavock: is pushing this [00:43:00] all of the time, and it is sticky with so many of us, is the natural f- immunity is better than vaccine-induced immunity. So it's this appeal to the natural fallacy-
Dr. Narvey: Yeah ...
Dr. McGavock: that anything that's from nature is better than anything that's from medicine. And so that... If we're talking about the vitamin K...
Dr. McGavock: And there's reason, like raw milk is safer because it's more natural.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: All of those things. You must be coming across that a lot. Yeah, y-
Dr. Narvey: you do, and the raw milk one is a great example. I think as a society- We have really come to embrace a little bit of the natural, probably for some good reasons. I'd be lying if I said science has never led us down the wrong path.
Dr. Narvey: I say this with trepidation. Please, listeners, know that I support the research that went into COVID science and so forth. But if you go back to the beginning of the pandemic, and you think about when the vaccines first came out-
Dr. McGavock: [00:44:00] Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: and we were being told, "If you take this vaccine, you will not get COVID."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: You will not get COVID. You will not go to the hospital. You will not go to an ICU."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: Or if you do, the likelihood is extremely low." Mm-hmm. "And that's why you should take the vaccine." Well, then that morphed into, "Okay, well, you might still get COVID, but you're not gonna go to the ICU. You're not gonna go into the hospital."
Dr. Narvey: And then that morphed to, "Well, you might still go."
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. "
Dr. Narvey: But you're not gonna have as bad a course as you would've without the vaccine," right? So as I said to somebody who challenged me on this about COVID vaccination, and that natural was better. What I said is, "You have to understand how science works."
Dr. Narvey: And I say this not as a clinician scientist, but just as someone for 25, 30 years has been watching the pendulum sometimes swing back and forth.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And I would hear about Anthony Fauci, that he lied, the, the community, he lied to the world.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: I don't think he did. I think that this is a [00:45:00] case of people reading the science at the time based on what they know, and telling what they believe to be the truth.
Dr. Narvey: But the problem is when the story keeps changing, and the advice keeps changing, there's a segment of the population that says, "You know what? They don't know what they're talking about."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: Or they're lying to us." And when the belief that there's a lie being perpetuated sneaks into the conversation, that of course undermines faith.
Dr. Narvey: And when you have these people that are using this natural fallacy, so to speak, that, "No, no, no, don't listen to the doctors. See? They don't know what they're talking about. Do you see how many times they've changed their tunes?"
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: You listen to me."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: You get this, you'll pass on the antibodies. You have your COVID parties.
Dr. Narvey: Don't worry about it," right?
Dr. McGavock: Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And, and then the- It's terrible. And this is a big problem, is when nothing happens. Let's [00:46:00] say people at a COVID party, 10 people show up. None of them have the vaccine. They all get COVID, right? They all have minor colds. Well, what happens? They walk away from that and they say, "Huh, we're right.
Dr. Narvey: We don't need vaccine." But when you look at it at a population level, like when your frequency of going to the ICU is 1%, right, let's say, you need a party with 100 people.
Dr. McGavock: Yes.
Dr. Narvey: Not 10 people. Yes, yes. Statistically, you, you might be okay. And it's the same story that I deal with vitamin K. You know, like, do, do all babies who don't get vitamin K get an intracranial bleed?
Dr. Narvey: No. You know, you hear this frequently in the population, I don't wanna name them per se, but some of our southern neighbors just in southern Manitoba that are more vitamin K hesitant. They'll say, "Yeah, my brother didn't give his kids, my sister didn't give her kids." Mm-hmm. "How many kids?" "Well, there's four."
Dr. Narvey: "Okay, and none of them got any problem?" "No."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: Well, the reason is 'cause you need more. Mm-hmm. You need more to see it, right?
Dr. McGavock: And the risk benefit too.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: The [00:47:00] risk is low. But if we, if we take that same COVID party and say, "Okay, well, let's take a bunch of kindergarten kids and have a measles party."
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: You're gonna see some problems.
Dr. McGavock: Different. Exactly. Yeah. And so it's that universal application of something like nature is best and that medicine doesn't know what it's doing. And that draws us into the next one, these false dichotomies. So I'll see on a social media post either the COVID shot or fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: Which one do you think your kids need?
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: That's a false dichotomy.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, you're forcing people to choose one when they could do both.
Dr. McGavock: They could do both, and they're not related to one another at all. Yeah. And, and that I think RFK Jr., like he leans into that so much-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. McGavock: that we need someone like you- Mm
Dr. McGavock: to walk us through that. And I think that's where the science communication needs to come in. And the first example, evidence comes out, it takes time for us to interpret it. I think we could do a whole podcast on how to communicate uncertainty in the right way so that people aren't losing [00:48:00] faith in the medical community.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. But the medical community needs to just point also in the, in this fallacy of these two things are not even comparable.
Dr. Narvey: Well, and the other thing that I often tell parents that are hesitant for about accepting what the science is saying, whether it's hep B vaccine in a mom who's hep B positive or, or vitamin K, what I often say to them is- Your answer needs to be based, whether you're gonna say yes or no, needs to be based not what by you heard at the supermarket from your friend Joan.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. Not what you saw on Instagram this morning. But there's a fundamental question that you need to ask, and only you are gonna know the answer to this, and I'll tell you what that question is. Forget the frequency, forget the incidence. If you don't give the vitamin K as the example, you have your baby, and at three days of age they come in with an intracranial bleed having seizures, and you're told that they will be [00:49:00] developmentally delayed and have a chronic seizure disorder and likely never walk.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: How strong is your conviction? If you are the N equals one-
Dr. McGavock: Yes ...
Dr. Narvey: right? It doesn't matter. Mm-hmm. But if it happens to you-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: and you as the parent knew that you could have taken that vitamin K, that will tell you, your own personality will tell you what the answer is because I've had a great number of families, and it's not trickery.
Dr. Narvey: It's being honest. It's getting them to think about something that they actually haven't thought about, that they may know no one out there that's had this problem.
Dr. McGavock: No.
Dr. Narvey: But if it happens, will they be able to live with themselves for the rest of their lives? And I had recently, interestingly it was a, a couple that were divided.
Dr. Narvey: They were together, but one wanted it, one didn't, and I told them that, and I walked out of the room, and I said, "I'll be back in an hour." I came back, and they said, "Give it."
Dr. McGavock: Okay. '
Dr. Narvey: Cause they realized that although they knew the likelihood was [00:50:00] low-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: if it happened, the one who said no said she'd never be able to live with herself.
Dr. McGavock: Yes.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And what's the risk? What are they saying the risk of the vitamin K is?
Dr. Narvey: Well, they just think it's not natural. It's not natural. You know, it's an artificial, manufactured vitamin K. And the other thing that you'll hear, and this is... I hear this not infrequently is, you know, if the Lord felt that th- our children needed vitamin K, they'd be born with vitamin K.
Dr. Narvey: Yes.
Dr. McGavock: Yes,
Dr. Narvey: yes. But unfortunately, if you believe in the Lord, this is one where the Lord, maybe for reasons that are beyond what we can comprehend, left the vitamin K out.
Dr. McGavock: And I think your approach could be grounded in science, but more importantly it's grounded in humanity.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: I'm not telling you what to do because I'm the head of neonatology- Mm-hmm
Dr. McGavock: and I'm smarter than you, and look at my white coat. You're saying, "I trust you. I value you. I understand that you're getting information from everywhere."
Dr. Narvey: Yep.
Dr. McGavock: I want you to sit with these questions, and then you come back and tell me what you wanna do.
Dr. Narvey: Exactly.
Dr. McGavock: That is such a great approach, and that is [00:51:00] something I wanna leave our listeners with is even though you have the education, you have the knowledge, it's how you communicate that to your patients or to the community that's gonna make it have an impact.
Dr. McGavock: Without you being able to deliver that in the right way- Mm-hmm ... it's not gonna land with the people that you're hoping that it'll land with.
Dr. McGavock: The last one is one that bugs me the most, and it should probably bug you even more, is the fact that doctors are all corrupt. Everything's about money.
Dr. Narvey: Oh, yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Fauci promoted this- Yeah ... 'cause he's in bed with Pfizer.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Right?
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Are you running into that, and how are you combating that, if you are?
Dr. Narvey: I've only run into it a couple of times. It was during COVID. I, I did put out a few posts on COVID and babies 'cause I had written for the Canadian Paediatric Society, I'd written three statements on COVID for neonates pertaining to hospital care, [00:52:00] breastfeeding, perinatal infection, that sort of stuff.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And I would share that on the internet, and there'd be some real strong opinions. So I did get a couple people say, "Oh, how much are the vaccine providers paying you?" And you know, I have to say, Jon, we're in a weak position because all we can do is say, "No."
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm. "
Dr. Narvey: We're not."
Dr. McGavock: Mm.
Dr. Narvey: But without Send in somebody my username and password for my bank account.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: There's no way to prove it, right? Yeah. But the reality is, and I think this is probably important for your listeners to know, the relationship between industry and physicians has certainly changed over the years, and the concept of a conflict of interest in medicine has really risen to the forefront.
Dr. Narvey: So, you know, going back just to show you how different it is. When I was in my second year of medicine, we had a sponsored by industry pizza [00:53:00] night.
Dr. McGavock: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Narvey: And the point of the night was how to work with industry. Okay. It was not how to avoid conflicts. It was, what do you do if you get flown to a golf course in Arizona, and what do you do with the money?
Dr. Narvey: How should you disclose it? It was all about that. So that was then. Now, the industry representatives, they are very respectful of the physicians and not wanting us to be put into a conflict of interest. And the truth is that I can only speak to U of M, but it-- I think it's pretty similar across most places.
Dr. Narvey: As a university employee, of which I am, I mentioned I'm an associate professor, I am obligated to disclose any financial relationships, any conflicts of interest- Mm-hmm ... when it, whenever I give a presentation. Failure to do so could lead me to get in pretty hot water. And the final thing I'll say is, as a physician, I'm well aware that I have a credibility to maintain.
Dr. McGavock: Yes.
Dr. Narvey: And so if I'm trying to give you a message, let's say, about [00:54:00] COVID, and I'm disclosing that I am a paid speaker for Pfizer or AstraZeneca or whoever it was-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: you know, there are people in the audience that are gonna roll their eyes, and in fact, I had that once. I did not receive funds that were used at a personal level, but I did have a relationship about five years ago with a company that provided dollars for supporting my research.
Dr. Narvey: And I subsequently went on about a year or two later to give a talk down in the States, not about that product specifically, but the talk contained information pertaining to that product. And I disclosed in the opening slide that I had that relationship. And what was interesting was the feedback, 'cause the conference shared with me the feedback, and a great number of people said that I was clearly in the bag of that company.
Dr. McGavock: Wow.
Dr. Narvey: And what was really interesting was the company who had supported my research, they had representatives [00:55:00] at that meeting that watched the talk, and their comment to me afterwards, not in a mean way, they said, "You were a little hard on us." Yeah. But the thing was because I knew. 'Cause I knew that I had to disclose that.
Dr. McGavock: Yes.
Dr. Narvey: I thought, "I'm gonna go out of my way to be even more cautious about not promoting it." But even though I was cautious enough that the company said to me, "
Dr. McGavock: Mm." Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: The people in attendance, just because they knew it, they devalued what my message was.
Dr. McGavock: And I... And that is unfortunate, but I think people should know that when they are listening to physicians, most of the time they are obligated, when they're giving scientific communication, to disclose any conflicts of interest that they have.
Dr. McGavock: And I would argue that the people who are shilling the false narratives, the misinformation, they're all sponsored by somebody.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: And they're sponsored maybe not by a drug company, but everyone has a sponsorship, and they're in there for the hits. They're in there for the money. And it's maybe important for us to tell the audience, too, [00:56:00] you should look for that on both sides.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. And don't be afraid. You know, if you're at a talk and they haven't disclosed something and they're coming across as extremely pro whatever the topic is-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: you know, you can ask. If they didn't disclose it, say, "Do you have any relationship?" You know, I've been asked to be on like a speaker circuit before.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: You know, paid by a company to go and give a canned talk-
Dr. McGavock: Yes ...
Dr. Narvey: that they have prepared- Yeah. ... and they just want a doctor with a good reputation to go and speak the word. When you do that, and this is for your listeners to be aware of, when people are offered those, customarily it is disclosed right at the beginning that they are a paid speaker.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. And, and it should be on everything you do. Now, as we start to get into the close here- This is something that one of my trainees asked me to ask you to think about, and I'll be direct. So you've got a huge following. You're having an impact.
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm.
Dr. McGavock: People are watching. [00:57:00] But how do you know who's watching?
Dr. McGavock: Are you still in the echo chamber- Mm ... people who believe the same thing that we do?
Dr. Narvey: Right.
Dr. McGavock: Or based on your approach, where you have the three distinct pillars, are you getting through to that, we'll call them the center right audience-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. McGavock: that's maybe unsure and is looking for that information?
Dr. Narvey: That is a fantastic question.
Dr. Narvey: Without sounding arrogant- ... because you have to understand that at different levels of engagement, these platforms unlock different metrics.
Dr. McGavock: Okay.
Dr. Narvey: So I can learn more about my audience, let's say, at the 100,000 level than I maybe I could at the 500 level, okay?
Dr. McGavock: What kind of things do you get from your-
Dr. Narvey: Like, you get stuff like male, female, where they're coming from.
Dr. Narvey: Like, I could tell you on any given day, like, how many from the USA, Canada, Britain, India, Pakistan, you know, and learn where they're coming from. You don't get metrics like what their political leanings are. Like, [00:58:00] we don't get that. No. But I would say indirectly, I do get a sense of whether I'm making an impact because once in a while I'll get a message from a viewer, and they're not seeking medical advice, but they are letting me know, "Thanks for that video.
Dr. Narvey: It made a big difference." There's a series I did on gestational age. It's not advocating for anything. It's just like, here's what it is. And so many families, thousands, literally thousands-
Dr. McGavock: Wow ...
Dr. Narvey: reached out and said, "These videos are amazing. I have it in my calendar. At the start of like my 27th week, I find your video on 27 weeks and I watch it."
Dr. Narvey: Wow. Wow. "28 weeks I do the same thing." And I've had some that have said- That's
Dr. McGavock: a great sign.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. And I will say this, that one of the biggest challenges though, and I feel badly, and I'll say to your listeners, I really do feel badly, is one of the problems is when you're a one-man show and you have a full-time job and you're doing this off the side of your desk-
Dr. McGavock: Yeah
Dr. Narvey: is when you do get something like that liver video, I've had a few of them. Like, I had one video... The [00:59:00] most viewed video I think I had was on a newborn reflex that had like 35 million views.
Dr. McGavock: Wow.
Dr. Narvey: There might be 100,000 comments, right? And-
Dr. McGavock: You can't go through that.
Dr. Narvey: No, you can't. And so I had a physician in the States send me an email, and she said, "I cannot believe that you are allowing this discourse on your video."
Dr. Narvey: Whoa. And I wrote her back and I said, like, "I'm sorry. What discourse? What are you talking about?" She sent me a link to it, and I guess what had broken out was, and s- I can't even believe this happened, but there was a fetus- Mm ... and I called them a baby. And to a segment- No ... of the population, there is a huge sensitivity around whether a fetus is a baby or whether a fetus has rights and, and so forth.
Dr. Narvey: And so there were several thousand comments that broke out. A fight broke out on this [01:00:00] post with back and forth, back and forth, of people hurling insults at each other, and baby killers, and all. And you're in the NICU saving- I'm in the NICU working ... you're, you're
Dr. McGavock: saving lives.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. I have no idea this is going on.
Dr. Narvey: And so I just said to her, I said, "Thank you," and I said, "I will delete the thread. You know, I'll block those commentaries." And it took me a little while to go through. It was a lot of the same group, like these trolls, right? Mm-hmm. So that is one of the challenges. Yeah. Is as you get bigger, it's great that you get the popularity.
Dr. Narvey: It's great. I'm no different than anyone else out there. Like, when I see that a video has a million views, I go, "Huh. That's kinda cool." But at the same time, it does become unmanageable to deal with the comments if there's some rude comments out there, so.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah, it's hard to be a rugged individual when you're-
Dr. McGavock: when you're doing this on your own.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: So I guess that segues into a question I get all the time about this podcast and other things [01:01:00] even within my own research. What are your metrics for success? Mm. My grad student asked me that the other day. "How do you know you're doing a good job?" And I say, "I... Some of the papers that I've published that I'm the most proud of, they've been referenced maybe six times."
Dr. McGavock: And I have no idea how many people listen to this. I just want the quality to get better every time I do it- Mm ... and I wanna learn something. On your end, what are your metrics for success? Why do you keep doing this when you do have a super important, very academically challenging position already?
Dr. Narvey: But you know, it's not necessarily measurable as a metric, but it's for the Little Rock, Arkansas'.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. '
Dr. Narvey: Cause there's been others. That's one story of not many, but some. Another, another story I got was a, a man who, he reached out to me. I've saved the email somewhere. He told me I saved his marriage. Wow. And he explained what happened, that he and his wife were almost at the point of divorce [01:02:00] after the loss of a fetus.
Dr. McGavock: Hmm.
Dr. Narvey: And they lost the pregnancy, and I can't remember exactly what the condition was, but the baby actually had this certain condition, and they learned through my video that the outcome was most likely going to be death s- before too long. But the wife had been in such a state of down, couldn't function, and he was on the verge of saying, "I'm done."
Dr. Narvey: And he showed her the video, and the two of them rallied around this video, and they stayed married, and they recovered. Wow. And, and you know, to me, remember I said a, a while back now, I said, "Even if it's one-"
Dr. McGavock: Yeah.
Dr. Narvey: You know? It's great to have a million or two million or five million views, but if I know that there's a marriage saved, there's a medical student or a resident that orders a test because they saw a 90-second or a 60-second video where I talked about a certain test that disclosed that this baby had this, and they said, "Aha."
Dr. McGavock: That's great.
Dr. Narvey: Or the other thing [01:03:00] is, you know, I once got an email... I'll just give you the last story, but I once got an email from a neonatologist in Southern California, not the same guy that wrote about the car seats, but a different guy. And he said, "I just wanted to thank you for the social media posts and the, the blog posts," because he said, "I wanted you to know that we have a sister unit in the Philippines."
Dr. Narvey: And he said, "We do journal club every month, and the Filipino neonatal group picks one of your posts- ... and that's what we base the education around."
Dr. McGavock: So great. "
Dr. Narvey: And we wanna see, do we agree with your take on it?"
Dr. McGavock: So great. Right? So great.
Dr. Narvey: And I thought, "Geez," like, there's a journal club. And the la- well, actually, the last one I'll tell you 'cause, yeah, it just popped in my mind.
Dr. Narvey: My wife, Lauren, is training to be a nurse practitioner. She'll be done in the next six months. And a couple years ago, I got an email from Vanderbilt University, and it was a nurse practitioner who was running their nurse practitioner program for pediatrics. And given it's the US, she wanted permission.
Dr. Narvey: [01:04:00] She said, "I wanted to build a course around your TikTok videos- ... and use those for every class to have your video- So great ... on a topic be a lead-in to a subject." But I wanted your permission to do that.
Dr. McGavock: Love it.
Dr. Narvey: And I thought, "Absolutely." That is so great. So those are my metrics, is those stories.
Dr. McGavock: And I'm not an expert in this area, but just looking at your content- Yeah
Dr. McGavock: you're not in it for clicks.
Dr. Narvey: No.
Dr. McGavock: You genuinely care about education.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: You genuinely care about dismantling disinformation. You're generally excited about these medical miracles.
Dr. Narvey: Oh, I am, yeah.
Dr. McGavock: It, it's fascinating. So if you were gonna leave our listeners with a message about scientific communication or how to have that aspect of your career-
Dr. Narvey: Mm-hmm
Dr. McGavock: what advice would you give them?
Dr. Narvey: What I would say is, you know, that we live in a world now where social media has really become media.
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Narvey: [01:05:00] And really gone are the days ... I'm sure it still happens, that there's magazines that publish your paper. But in terms of knowledge translation, if you want the hard work that you're putting in to disseminate And you also want the opportunity to have something come back to you.
Dr. Narvey: That's not why you do it, but there could be a researcher in Germany, in Indonesia-
Dr. McGavock: Mm-hmm ...
Dr. Narvey: that is doing similar work to you, but they haven't yet made it. They're not well-known. But by putting yourself out there, having the confidence to put yourself out there, sometimes you get stuff back in return, ideas that grow, a seed that grows into a tree that you can parlay into something great.
Dr. Narvey: I think that don't be afraid. I will say this, you need to have a bit of thick skin because- Oh, yeah ... if you're gonna put stuff out there- Oh, yeah ... you, you do have to be prepared that once in a while somebody disagrees with [01:06:00] you and, or you might put something out and somebody says, "Excuse me, but that's not what you think it is."
Dr. Narvey: And then you go, "Oh." You're
Dr. McGavock: gonna make a mistake. "
Dr. Narvey: Oh, okay." Yeah. "All right. Thanks for educating me." I think that's the key is if you really wanna grow in research, social media allows you to broadcast to the world, and the other thing I would say is even if you don't yourself have a huge following, if you can, and I hate to use the word influencer, but that's it, if you can find somebody who's in your field who has a big footprint and get them to help you-
Dr. McGavock: Yes
Dr. Narvey: that can be a huge assist. And I did that recently as an example with international qualitative study being done where they were having a real tough time getting numbers up, and so the researcher from Australia reached out to me and said, "Can you do me a favor, and can you share this on your Facebook page and your other-" Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah ...
Dr. Narvey: And I did, and she said, "We got a huge boost." You [01:07:00] know, and so yeah, like partner with people. Be social.
Dr. McGavock: That is such great advice. We are working with a marketing firm right now and doing the same thing and trying- Mm ... to find the different outlets. So we work with teenagers with Type 1 diabetes. Those are closed Facebook groups.
Dr. McGavock: Getting the advertising out is challenging, so one of the messages we got was find the person who's doing the work.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah.
Dr. McGavock: But thank you so much.
Dr. Narvey: Um- Yeah, it was a pleasure. This was great ...
Dr. McGavock: I, I'll give you a little story. We were brainstorming around our trainee event last year. Mm-hmm. So we have a research group called DREAM.
Dr. McGavock: Yeah. And people were saying, "We need to get into social media and, and medicine, social media and research. Who's doing it?" And I said- Oh ... "Oh, do you guys know Mike Narvey's got like a million followers?" And locally-
Dr. Narvey: Yeah ...
Dr. McGavock: some people were like, "What?"
Dr. Narvey: Yeah. "
Dr. McGavock: Really?" Like, they had no idea-
Dr. Narvey: Yeah ...
Dr. McGavock: if they weren't on these social media platforms.
Dr. McGavock: And the trainees thought your messaging was amazing. You inspired them to do this kind of work. So-
Dr. Narvey: That's great ...
Dr. McGavock: thank you very much for agreeing to do that. And that's what brought us here today actually, was I [01:08:00] thought-
Dr. Narvey: Yeah ...
Dr. McGavock: I haven't done anything on social media yet, or on science communication, and you would be the perfect one- Thank you
Dr. McGavock: to highlight that. So- Thank
Dr. Narvey: you ...
Dr. McGavock: really grateful. We'll keep following that, and we'll put links to all these things in the show notes, and look forward to seeing where N- NICU Musings goes next.
Dr. Narvey: Sounds great.
Dr. McGavock: Thanks a lot.
Dr. Narvey: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Dr. McGavock: So here's what struck me about this conversation. My colleague Mike didn't set out to become a science communicator. He set out to take care of babies, the smallest babies. And somehow along the way, between writing guidelines that nobody outside medicine would ever read, and watching misinformation travel faster than anyone could possibly correct, he had to make a choice.
Dr. McGavock: He decided to meet people where they actually were. Not in the medical journals, not in the committee rooms, but on their phones at 2:00 in the morning and in the comment sections. And what he's fighting isn't random noise. [01:09:00] It has patterns. We talked about three of those today. The appeal to nature, the idea that because something is natural, it must be better, even when the evidence says otherwise.
Dr. McGavock: The false dichotomy, the framing that forces you to choose between two options when the real answer is actually both. And the ad hominem, the moment someone stops arguing with science and starts attacking the scientist himself or herself. These aren't just bad arguments. They're tools. And once you learn them, you start seeing them everywhere.
Dr. McGavock: And maybe that's the start to battle misinformation. I think there's something in this conversation for every emerging scholar listening to this. The research does matter. The evidence does matter. But if the only people who ever see it are your colleagues and the ones who already agree with you, and the people who disagree with it are being handed a toolkit of fallacies that sound just true enough to believe, you have to start asking yourself, "Is the research that we do enough?"
Dr. McGavock: Michael calls his patients small warriors. I think in his own way, he's become one too. If you wanna follow his work, [01:10:00] you can find him on TikTok, on Instagram @NICU_musings and his blog, All Things Neonatal, at winnipegneonatal.wordpress.com. The Emerging Scholar podcast is produced at UMFM 101.5 in partnership with co-producer Jared McKetiak in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Dr. McGavock: If this episode meant something to you, please share it with a colleague, a trainee, someone who's thinking about whether their work can reach beyond the academy. You can subscribe to The Emerging Scholar on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Please check out our Substack at emergingscholar.substack.com.
Dr. McGavock: And if you have ideas, questions, comments, concerns about the topics that we've covered, please email us at scholar@umfm.com. I'm Jon McGavock. This is The Emerging Scholar podcast. Thanks for listening.
Dr. McGavock: The Emerging Scholar podcast was recorded in the UMFM studios located at the University of [01:11:00] Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This is Treaty One territory, the original homeland of the Anishinaabe, the Ininew, and on the national homeland of the Red River Métis. Manitoba is also homeland to the Anishininew, the Dakota Oyate, and the Dene peoples.
Dr. McGavock: We acknowledge that our water is sourced from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. As a settler scientist working in health research, I acknowledge TRC Call to Action number 18, that health inequities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are the direct result of colonization. Winnipeg is the center for reconciliation in Canada, and where we are speaking from today is at the crossroads of Canada's history and Canada's future.
Dr. McGavock: We are three kilometers away from one of the most sacred meeting grounds for Indigenous people on the plains and within Turtle Island. We are also several kilometers away from one of the last residential schools in the province. We are working collectively on reconcili-action with youth, elders, and community leaders to [01:12:00] heal from the trauma of colonization, past and present, honor the original treaties, and create a Canada that addresses and eliminates the inequities and injustices of the past and present to create a future for Indigenous children to live and thrive.
Dr. McGavock: On behalf of the team at the Emerging Scholar podcast, we want to thank Osani Balkaran for the great production for our opening and closing themes. We also want to thank UMFM 101.5, especially our executive producer, Jared McKetiak, for technical assistance and production on this project. We also want to thank all of our guests for the discussion and the insight that they've provided.
Dr. McGavock: Once again, thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the Emerging Scholar podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and umfm.com.
Dr. Michael Narvey is head of neonatology at the University of Manitoba and spent nine years on the Canadian Paediatric Society's Fetus and Newborn Committee, five of them as chair. He describes how caring for his younger sister sparked an interest in pediatrics, and why the NICU, where the smallest and sickest babies can recover remarkably, became his home.
He explains how questioning a long standing practice led to a national statement that changed care in Canada and beyond, and why trainees should never be afraid to ask why we do things. Told to focus on teaching rather than research, he started the All Things Neonatal blog to reach more learners, built a large following, and was promoted in part on the strength of that work. A TikTok video about a pregnancy in a liver later reached millions and made headlines around the world.
Jon and Dr. Narvey also discuss common patterns in misinformation, including the appeal to nature around vitamin K and natural immunity, how to communicate risk to parents, why disclosing conflicts of interest matters, and how to measure impact beyond citations.
The key ideas from this conversation, written up on Substack with links and a question to carry into your own work.
Read on Substack