Treating misinformation with Dr. Geeta Nayyar, author of Dead Wrong at HLTH 2024 || EP. 175

[00:00:00] Well, look, as far as why I wrote the book, you know, for some reason in healthcare, we as healthcare

[00:00:04] leaders, we as clinicians have always accepted myths and disinformation as that wallpaper in the

[00:00:10] background, right? Just something that existed in the four walls of the hospital, but no one really

[00:00:14] paid attention to or acknowledged. And really that became very highlighted during the pandemic,

[00:00:20] right? When we look at the stakes in terms of mortality, morbidity. And for me, it was really

[00:00:27] a flashback to when I was a young doctor during the HIV AIDS epidemic. And I remember sitting in

[00:00:32] lockdown in my home office saying, how could we have let this happen again? Because during HIV AIDS,

[00:00:38] you know, and the first chapter of the book actually starts out with my patient, Jerome, who dies of AIDS

[00:00:42] and can, and insist that he's not homosexual and he could, therefore I was wrong and he couldn't

[00:00:48] possibly have AIDS, right? And so it just, to me was a repeat of history when we were told at the time

[00:00:55] of the HIV AIDS epidemic, this was once in a lifetime. It wasn't going to happen again. I was

[00:00:59] a young doctor again. We were, we were, it was meant to be like a hopeful message. And then here I was

[00:01:04] during COVID working with my medical students and residents, finding myself saying the same thing,

[00:01:09] right? And so I wrote the book namely because I felt that the wallpaper, right? This wallpaper we've,

[00:01:14] we've accepted as part of the ecosystem needed to be called out because it was a repeat,

[00:01:20] but also because it's getting worse because of technology, namely artificial intelligence,

[00:01:26] social media, mis and disinformation actually travel six times faster than the facts.

[00:01:31] That is a new phenomenon, Laurie, right? Mis and disinformation been around since the black

[00:01:35] plague. Some neighbors told you this, somebody told you that, but now it's very different.

[00:01:45] This is inspiring women. And today I am finally speaking with the Dr. Gita Nair. She is

[00:01:53] a nationally recognized healthcare technology leader. She has been the chief medical officer

[00:01:59] of enormous tech companies like Salesforce, like AT&T, but she is very well recognized for her

[00:02:07] nationally acclaimed book, dead wrong diagnosing and treating healthcare as misinformation illness.

[00:02:14] She's an expert in AI. She is an influencer and she is here to speak with us today. Gita,

[00:02:20] I have been wanting to talk to you. I think it's two years. I've been trying to get you on the program.

[00:02:26] And finally, I am have the chance to talk to you. Thank you for doing this.

[00:02:30] You bet. Likewise. Yeah. And I think that was like pre COVID when both of us had white walls. Now

[00:02:34] you've got a red wall. I've got a blue wall. So thanks for finally having me on.

[00:02:39] All right. Well, this is, this is great. So listen, I think the whole world knows you and you have

[00:02:46] been doing a service for all of us seriously, because you know, the book that you took the time

[00:02:51] to write, which you were doing when you were, you know, big, the big job that you had at Salesforce

[00:02:58] today, you are an advisor to so many organizations. Um, but you wrote this very, very important book,

[00:03:06] dead wrong. I want to actually go a little bit backwards and maybe Gita, just like you got into

[00:03:12] medicine. That alone is a big enough job. Then you turn to technology and we're a leader there.

[00:03:17] So maybe just, if you wouldn't mind a couple of minutes on the way back machine and sort of like,

[00:03:23] you know, how did you get here? Oh gosh, that's always a fun question. Look like everything.

[00:03:28] I was either in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place in the right time. It depends

[00:03:33] who you ask. You know, I'll, I'll tell you that my journey was really interesting in that I became a

[00:03:39] rheumatologist because my mom actually has a very rare autoimmune disease. And like every South Indian

[00:03:45] family, we would go to the doctors of the whole family. I've got two brothers, dad, and my whole

[00:03:49] life, my mom was told she had an autoimmune disease that we weren't quite sure what it was.

[00:03:55] And so I became a rheumatologist mainly for that reason. I was intrigued. I thought, you know,

[00:03:59] maybe somewhere along the line, I could help my mom. And my mom was actually, um, dying when I

[00:04:05] became a rheumatologist. I was my rheumatology fellow. I was a rheumatology fellow at the time.

[00:04:09] And a big part, and the long story, the long and short of it is my mom is thriving, living her best

[00:04:15] life. She's 76. She lived to meet my daughter, but she was misdiagnosed her whole life until I diagnosed

[00:04:21] her when I was a rheumatology fellow, actually. And a big part of her journey was that her data was in

[00:04:28] disparate places, right? So she had an esoteric diagnosis, no doubt. Access was certainly an issue

[00:04:33] to a rheumatologist, which it is across the country, across the globe. But so much of her

[00:04:37] journey was that cardiology didn't know what neuro was doing. Neuro didn't know what endocrine was

[00:04:42] doing, et cetera, et cetera. And so a big part of the role I played was not just my knowledge of

[00:04:46] rheumatology, but actually connecting the data points. Yep. And this was when the EHR was just

[00:04:52] starting. Researcher, caregiver, and putting it all together is a difficult job, right? Even if you

[00:04:58] know what you're doing in healthcare, but it's complex even then.

[00:05:04] That's exactly right. And I'm a physician. My dad is a physician. My mom is a physician. I mean,

[00:05:08] you couldn't ask for more blessings in terms of resources and knowledge. And it was still

[00:05:13] quite a journey for us. So a big part of why I dedicated my career to health tech is related to

[00:05:19] my mom, but also to my patients, because I said, you know, how many people can have a daughter who is

[00:05:24] in the specialty of their diagnosis and disease, and then also shepherd their way through this

[00:05:29] information. Because being a physician is very much like being a detective, right? And if you're

[00:05:33] missing clues, you're going to be further off from, you know, making the, finding the murderer,

[00:05:38] finding the diagnosis. And so, so much of my mother's journey was really that being the person

[00:05:43] that would get all the information together, connect the dots, and then was able to make this

[00:05:48] esoteric diagnosis. So it's really how I ended up in health tech. It was very much with a focus on how to

[00:05:54] empower patients to be their own advocate, to navigate the system. And we certainly have a

[00:06:00] lot of work to do still, Lori, but I think we've, we've certainly made progress. And so my role at AT&T,

[00:06:06] Salesforce, a variety of companies, companies I still work with now is doing that. It's trying to

[00:06:10] move the industry forward to make the consumer that much more savvy. Yep. And we have, I agree,

[00:06:16] we have made a lot of progress. I did a recent conversation with experts in the interoperability

[00:06:24] space. And if we just talk, I mean, you know, we have so much data at our fingertips,

[00:06:30] which is wonderful. And maybe the electronic clinical data highway has been paved, but,

[00:06:38] you know, since you've worked so deeply in health tech, you also have become really an expert in the

[00:06:44] area of AI. So I just, you know, before we even get to dead wrong, I'd love for you to just maybe

[00:06:50] give a bit of perspective of when that technology into AI is not new, but it's newly, you know,

[00:06:57] into, you know, the public's awareness of how very, very powerful it is. And just like you saw

[00:07:03] coming before it became, you know, sort of everyone's daily conversation.

[00:07:09] Sure. So look, I think there couldn't be a more exciting time to be a healthcare leader,

[00:07:14] right? We're living in the era of artificial intelligence becoming a reality, whether we're

[00:07:19] talking about generative AI, large language models. I mean, there's no dearth of innovation

[00:07:23] in the post-pandemic era that you and I are living in, right? We get to be at the table shaping the

[00:07:29] next transformation of healthcare. So I think it's incredibly thrilling. Where I think it's incredibly

[00:07:35] exciting on the clinical side is when we think about personalized medicine and actually being able to,

[00:07:41] excuse me, better do diagnostics and therapeutics, very similar to what we saw during COVID,

[00:07:45] right? mRNA vaccine overnight in what would have previously taken many, many years. So I think that

[00:07:52] space is particularly exciting. What I think we have to be careful of is when we talk about

[00:07:57] living in a physician shortage, an era of physician burnout, this idea, mostly it comes from the

[00:08:03] technologists, right? That say, well, don't worry about it. We'll just replace those doctors and nurses

[00:08:09] with generative AI, right? And that's exactly the right answer because that's the wrong problem to

[00:08:13] solve. So I'm always very cautious of what I think is limitless potential with generative AI,

[00:08:18] et cetera, but making sure that we are really focusing on the right problems because the technology

[00:08:26] can do so many things. But what we need to be really mindful of is that we are not distancing the

[00:08:31] patient-physician relationship, which we have done in the past with many technologies to date.

[00:08:37] And so one of the things we have to be mindful of is looking at lessons learned from the electronic

[00:08:41] health record era, things we've learned from social media, any number of innovations we now

[00:08:47] have data on, right? We have research on. And what we learned from the EHR is we solved three problems

[00:08:51] and then we created five new ones, right? We launched scribe services and then we launched an entire new

[00:08:57] business around documentation and put three people in the examining room to ask our patients about sexual

[00:09:02] history, family history, alcohol and drug use. I mean, you name it, right? We changed the fundamental

[00:09:07] dynamic between doctors and patients and we burnt out our staff, right? We burnt out our staff. And so

[00:09:13] we can't afford to do that with AI. AI is even more powerful. And so I think it's really about

[00:09:20] directing it at the problems of today that it can be more impactful on. And some of them are not very

[00:09:26] sexy, Lori, right? I'm talking clinical decision support, prior authorization, documentation,

[00:09:32] accurate documentation, right? So these are the things to focus on. Diagnostics and therapeutics is a huge one.

[00:09:37] Again, I think that's probably one of the most exciting ones. If we think about leapfrogging actual

[00:09:42] diagnosis and clinical care, but replacing that doctor at the bedside, replacing the nurse at the

[00:09:48] bedside, absolutely wrong problem to solve. We're going to make things worse. But if I think about

[00:09:53] navigating the healthcare system information, I mean, there's so much low hanging fruit because we

[00:09:57] have such a dysfunctional healthcare system. So we just have to be mindful that our bad habits

[00:10:03] and our good habits will only be amplified by this technology. So we want to point and shoot in the

[00:10:09] right places. Yeah. Well, I also think, you know, like it might be the non-sexy kind of problems that

[00:10:16] are advanced for us, but like, let's have at it because that level of burden that you're talking

[00:10:21] about, I mean, that's only gone up over the years. And I know you're an advisor to the American

[00:10:28] Medical Association. Certainly when I was there, you know, the physician burnout, clinician burnout,

[00:10:35] it was real, but only getting worse than we had a pandemic. I'd like to shift maybe a bit to the

[00:10:43] premise of your book, Dead Wrong, because certainly, you know, one of the things, and this was so

[00:10:49] interesting to me, you know, I know a lot about electronic health records. I know about the systems

[00:10:54] that sort of like, you know, where the early technologies there, but this whole world of

[00:11:00] social media and other types of information that have become so important for human beings to learn

[00:11:07] about their health, maybe, maybe not. And social media and all of that has contributed to a different

[00:11:15] level of problem, almost an exponential problem, which I think is a bit of the backdrop of Dead Wrong.

[00:11:21] So maybe just bring us back to some of the key premises of Dead Wrong and why you felt so compelled

[00:11:28] to write it, because it's been very impactful. Thank you, Lori. Thank you so much for that.

[00:11:33] Well, look, as far as why I wrote the book, you know, for some reason in healthcare, we as healthcare

[00:11:37] leaders, we as clinicians have always accepted myths and disinformation as that wallpaper in the

[00:11:44] background, right? Just something that existed in the four walls of the hospital, but no one really

[00:11:47] paid attention to or acknowledged. And really that became very highlighted during the pandemic,

[00:11:53] right? When we look at the stake, the stakes in terms of mortality, morbidity. And for me,

[00:11:59] it was really a flashback to when I was a young doctor during the HIV AIDS epidemic.

[00:12:04] And I remember sitting in lockdown in my home office saying,

[00:12:08] how could we have let this happen again? Because during HIV AIDS, you know, and the first chapter

[00:12:13] of the book actually starts out with my patient, Jerome, who dies of AIDS and can insist that he's

[00:12:18] not homosexual and he could, therefore I was wrong and he couldn't possibly have AIDS, right?

[00:12:23] And so it just, to me, was a repeat of history when we were told at the time of the HIV AIDS epidemic,

[00:12:30] this was once in a lifetime, it wasn't going to happen again. I was a young doctor again,

[00:12:33] it was meant to be like a hopeful message. And then here I was during COVID working with my medical

[00:12:39] students and residents, finding myself saying the same thing, right? And so I wrote the book namely

[00:12:44] because I felt that the wallpaper, right? This wallpaper we've accepted as part of the ecosystem

[00:12:50] needed to be called out because it was a repeat, but also because it's getting worse. Because of

[00:12:56] technology, namely artificial intelligence, social media, myths and disinformation actually travel six

[00:13:02] times faster than the facts. That is a new phenomenon, Lori, right? Listen, disinformation

[00:13:08] been around since the black plague, some neighbors told you this, somebody told you that, but now it's

[00:13:12] very different. And now we have misfits out there really victimizing our patients who are only looking

[00:13:18] for information about their health because they want to be healthy, by the way. So to be clear,

[00:13:23] nobody's waking up in the morning saying, how can I be the fool today, right? You have consumers today

[00:13:27] that are looking to social media in the absence of having a doctor or being able to get an appointment

[00:13:33] saying, okay, well, this TikTok influencer seems to know what they're talking about. And they say,

[00:13:38] if I take this supplement for 9.99, I won't get breast cancer. So the myths for the mammogram

[00:13:44] happens, right? The myths for even having a primary care doctor happens. And so it's really imperative

[00:13:49] for us as healthcare leaders to understand that this is now new competition. This is a new kind of

[00:13:55] patient loyalty that's being built. And for anyone doing fee-for-service or value-based care,

[00:14:01] this is now who you're competing with, right? And so how do we as healthcare leaders actually

[00:14:06] embrace these technologies, take the narrative back and say, you know what? The wallpaper should

[00:14:11] be really red like Lori's because it's a better wallpaper, right? Well, but it's such an important

[00:14:17] thing to like, let's take, for example, vaccine hesitancy. Like when did this become such a big deal?

[00:14:22] When is it, you know, what world are we living in that measles is suddenly like, you know,

[00:14:28] actually happening again in ways that are alarming. And so to me, those are representative

[00:14:34] of this powerful disinformation that you're talking about. And as physicians, as clinicians,

[00:14:42] as leaders, how do you take back the narrative? Well, you know, again, I cover this in depth in

[00:14:48] chapter eight in the book, but there's a really great use case of the Cleveland Clinic where actually

[00:14:52] it was the chief marketing officer that walks over to the chief medical officer's office,

[00:14:56] the CIO's office, the CFO's office and says, Hey, we got a problem. Our community doesn't trust us.

[00:15:02] And we have some of the world experts. We have some of the world innovations, but somehow that

[00:15:06] message is being missed. And you guys are the doctors. You're the money man. You know,

[00:15:09] this affects our money, our patient revenue, our acquisition and retention.

[00:15:12] And I love it because it's such a good example of a C-suite strategy and one that isn't asking our

[00:15:19] doctors to now do six more things, right? The chief marketing officer essentially put together the

[00:15:25] messaging in conjunction with the clinical team who knows science and does this every day, right?

[00:15:30] Made sure they combed their hair. They looked nice on camera for 30 seconds and then actually

[00:15:34] reached out to YouTube and partnered with social media companies like a YouTube and said, look,

[00:15:39] we're available to everyone, anyone, and we're also accountable, right? If we say something,

[00:15:43] we'll have an appointment with you virtually or otherwise. So we're accountable, very different

[00:15:48] from the social media space, right? Where you can say something and you have no license potentially,

[00:15:52] or you just deactivate your account. And it's a very much a good luck relationship, right? And so there

[00:15:58] are ways to do this at the enterprise level, but I think Lori, fundamentally the shift in mindset is that

[00:16:04] in healthcare for so long, particularly in academia, we've always thought of marketing as a nice to have,

[00:16:10] not a must have. And the reality is marketing is now patient education, right? Marketing is now patient

[00:16:17] education and 59 million Americans turn to social media for decisions about their health. So if we're

[00:16:23] really a healthcare enterprise or system, we say it all the time, we want to meet the consumer where

[00:16:28] they're at. Well, that's where they're at, right? So why would you not? Why would you not claim the real

[00:16:33] estate there? Why would you not, you know, shout from the mountaintops, the knowledge that you have,

[00:16:37] but also the, I will take care of you piece that no one else in on those platforms can say, except for

[00:16:43] the healthcare enterprises, right? But for the average physician, you know, the average clinician,

[00:16:51] do you think it is almost a fundamental requirement that they need to be social media savvy or like,

[00:16:58] what, what are your expectations of what it's going to take to sort of continue to command that level of

[00:17:06] trust and also influence for the, for the people that they serve?

[00:17:12] So again, I start with, we can't ask our doctors to do more than they do, right? And fundamentally,

[00:17:17] you want your doctor to be the best doctor they can be. You're not, I'm not interested in seeing a

[00:17:21] social media expert, right? I'm interested in seeing a medical expert. So I think that for those

[00:17:25] physicians who happen to be inclined and there are many influence out there, Dr. Mike, Dr. Austin

[00:17:30] Chang, I think it's wonderful. But what really scales is at the enterprise level. And it's exactly

[00:17:34] the Cleveland Clinic case. I think it has to be the marketing function working with the clinical

[00:17:40] function and it can't be a side hustle, right? To your point, this has to be something the enterprise

[00:17:45] invests in, sees as valuable. We can't ask our doctors to now go home and do their notes and then

[00:17:50] put up a TikTok video. It's simply not, it's simply not, I think, fair, nor should it be a burden. But

[00:17:57] I do think every enterprise has a chief marketing officer and this is something they need to work in

[00:18:02] tandem with their chief medical officer with and the CFO to be able to show the metrics. Because again,

[00:18:08] we too often look at these things as nice to haves, as cost centers. And if you're really interested

[00:18:14] in value-based care, if you're interested in patient acquisition, patient loyalty, preventing

[00:18:20] bounce back, look, if you're getting that 1099 supplement, Lori, you're not getting that mammogram,

[00:18:25] right? You're not getting the colonoscopy. Heck, you're not even making a visit to the doctor because

[00:18:29] you don't feel like you have to, right? And you don't have the same access. So I would say again,

[00:18:33] just like the business of the day in healthcare, this has to be a C-suite priority. But it is,

[00:18:39] it's interesting because when I speak around the country, speak around the world, frankly,

[00:18:43] because this is such a common phenomenon, I always ask who's in charge of consumer experience,

[00:18:48] patient acquisition, loyalty, value-based care, and like a million hands go up. But when I ask

[00:18:54] who's in charge of the mis- and disinformation strategy, no one ever raises their hand.

[00:18:59] Yep. And everyone claims to be doing this. And so it's just such a great indicator of that

[00:19:04] wallpaper. We miss it every time and we just accept it as part of a narrative. And the differences,

[00:19:10] you know, in the provider space in particular, we're always competing with the other provider

[00:19:13] down the street. I don't think that's the case anymore. You're now competing with the influencer

[00:19:19] down the street who has an entire business online.

[00:19:22] Yeah. Who's not down the street, who just happens to be sort of like in your algorithmic

[00:19:27] TikTok reel that's out there. You know, Gita, I wanted to, even though your expertise,

[00:19:34] of course, is the healthcare landscape. We are in an election frenzy time right now. And if we talk

[00:19:42] about disinformation, it is quite obvious sort of like how that can influence these mega shifts

[00:19:50] politically. And if we look at this current election, you know, it's my observation that

[00:19:56] healthcare is not really on the ballot box, you know, in the way that it has been historically.

[00:20:02] What are your thoughts about that? And what should we be thinking about from more of the

[00:20:07] political landscape and what you are expert in AI healthcare and all the policy that goes with that?

[00:20:13] Well, I really appreciate that question because I think we have a shared sentiment there, right?

[00:20:18] And certainly when Biden and Trump were both running against each other, my thought was the same,

[00:20:23] which is, you know, both of these presidents were the president during the pandemic and no one's

[00:20:28] talking about public health infrastructure. No one is talking about how are we going to regulate or

[00:20:33] think about social media and mis- and disinformation as it relates to our health. Again, not a pandemic

[00:20:39] issue, but we saw it play out globally all at the same time. And so it is, it is really disappointing

[00:20:45] to see that that is not part of the dialogue because clearly we have gaps in our public health

[00:20:50] infrastructure. And I will tell you one of the big lessons I also learned as a CMO of Salesforce is

[00:20:55] public health in the United States, at least is largely employer health, right? And so what are

[00:21:00] we doing to also help our employers be smarter, better, faster about instilling good information,

[00:21:08] good decisions, and every employer struggles with this. How do you even get your employee to understand

[00:21:12] go to the urgent care before the ER, right? And obviously have a doctor if you can, but there are

[00:21:18] small things about public health education that continue to be a myth. Women's health is obviously

[00:21:24] part of the conversation we're seeing now, but there's so much more to healthcare. And I would

[00:21:29] love to see that. I hope that we hear that before November, but I share your sentiment that it is

[00:21:35] disappointing. And I don't know if that's because everyone wants to forget COVID, but I know all of

[00:21:39] us as healthcare leaders are really hungry and thirsty to never go through that again. And so we are looking

[00:21:46] for a leader that ensures our system is ready and aware and able.

[00:21:52] So, so much of you to the work that you do, I mean, you're giving us both sort of like, you're giving us

[00:21:59] the diagnosis of what disinformation looks like and how impactful you're also giving us practical

[00:22:04] solutions for how esteemed organizations and even just like any organization can begin to combat those

[00:22:12] things. I'm just wondering, you know, from your lens, do you have bright spots that you think about?

[00:22:18] Because it's hard to not be overwhelmed, you know, six times, you know, six times more likely to hear

[00:22:24] the, you know, not true things and have those, I mean, those are big numbers. Are there any bright

[00:22:30] spots or things that we can be optimistic about?

[00:22:35] Absolutely. So again, first of all, we are living in the most exciting time, I think,

[00:22:39] industry and healthcare. I mean, we have made it through a pandemic. We have made telemedicine is now

[00:22:44] part of medicine. It's not really special. Hybrid care is here to stay. I think we'll continue to get

[00:22:49] more sophisticated in that regard. Reimbursement for those services is here to stay. And look, we have a

[00:22:55] consumer generation and a medical generation, right? But the medical students and the doctors

[00:23:00] in training I work with, they're very tech savvy. They're very tech forward. They are only going to push

[00:23:05] the innovations, particularly artificial intelligence to a whole new level. And we're going to be ready

[00:23:10] for it because that's no longer going to be the new kid on the block. So I think there's endless,

[00:23:14] endless hope, but why not start now? Right? I always kind of call to action that if we don't do it now,

[00:23:20] when we have every innovation that 50 years ago, we couldn't have even imagined, and we have a climate

[00:23:25] that is primed for figuring this out, it's really a now or never moment. And I think it's also a moment

[00:23:33] where we need to start accepting a little bit of failure, right, Lori? Because the truth is,

[00:23:39] we are still learning. I would not pretend to actually to say that, you know, there's the guru

[00:23:44] out there as it relates to AI, because we are still learning. And we're certainly still learning

[00:23:49] its application in healthcare and what will be the right moves to make versus ones that will cause

[00:23:55] increasing health equity. We have to be mindful of ethical uses. But I think this is the time to

[00:24:01] try everything, right, and innovate and fail fast. Because the faster you fail, the quicker you get

[00:24:06] to success. That's always been sort of my motto. And even as a mom, it's always been my motto, go out

[00:24:12] there, make some mistakes, right? Because you're going to get up and you're going to make new mistakes,

[00:24:16] but hopefully not the same ones you just made. And so I think we do have to have that appetite in

[00:24:20] healthcare when we are playing with some of these more innovative things.

[00:24:24] Well, I love to hear that level of optimism and energy that goes alongside it. You know, Gita,

[00:24:32] I can't not talk to you and not talk about women in leadership. And yes, it's been a long road and

[00:24:40] there are so many more women who are in leadership positions and positions like yours of immense influence

[00:24:46] and impact. And I just love to get your perspective, all the hard lessons learned of how you got there.

[00:24:52] Those are not how you present yourself. And there's no, I'm just like, oh yeah, it was hard. You are all

[00:24:59] about hard charging and really laying out a future vision for what is possible. So Jess, I'd love your

[00:25:07] thoughts on sort of like, where are we as women leaders today? And what do you think about in terms

[00:25:13] the lasting impact or the acceleration for more women into leadership?

[00:25:19] Well, first of all, Lori, again, thank you for having me. Thank you for making me feel good.

[00:25:22] I feel like they got my morning doses of love.

[00:25:24] You're the best. You're the greatest.

[00:25:25] What do you do tomorrow, Lori?

[00:25:27] I'm girling you.

[00:25:29] Thank you for that. Thank you for this podcast. Because I love that this is, you know,

[00:25:33] the theme of the podcast and that you're having any number of folks that I also admire on.

[00:25:39] I would say that it takes, I tell my daughter this all the time,

[00:25:41] it takes a lot of energy to make it look easy. Right? And once people are successful,

[00:25:47] everybody wants to be your friend. But whom I always remember is the people who helped me get

[00:25:52] from A to B to C to D. And the question I then always ask myself is how do I pay that forward?

[00:25:58] Right? And for me, I think one of the places that I've just personally invested and gives me the most

[00:26:02] rewarding is the younger generation. And whether that's my 12-year-old daughter to the medical

[00:26:07] students I work with, you know, I very intentionally included both my daughter and one of the medical

[00:26:11] students that I mentor at the University of Miami in the book. I don't know if you looked at it,

[00:26:16] but they're both now best-selling illustrators in the book. And I came up with that idea one week

[00:26:21] before a student publisher, by the way. And I sat down with both of them and I said, listen,

[00:26:25] I've been thinking about how to incorporate you guys in this book. And this is the only thing I can

[00:26:29] come up with because it's a very sophisticated healthcare book. And I literally ordered every

[00:26:34] day. I got pizza, whatever they wanted. And they sat down in the living room and I had to explain

[00:26:39] every chapter to them, by the way, because there was no time. And it's not like my 12-year-old,

[00:26:43] she was nine at the time. But the point I'm trying to make is it was an intentional inclusion and it

[00:26:50] remains intentional to include them in everything I can related to their work and their merit.

[00:26:54] But I think we also have to not just support each other, but also look at the girls in their 20s

[00:27:01] and 30s. If I think back on the places where I could have had the biggest delta or the biggest

[00:27:06] support or save myself some grief and some time, made more financial wealth as well. I wish I had

[00:27:12] that big sister. I wish I had that second mom, grandmother even, right, to say, hey, you're at this

[00:27:19] place now where you need to do X and you need to do Y. And I think I got there with a lot of

[00:27:26] luck and accidents and also mistakes, but I would love to see us in this next generation.

[00:27:31] It shouldn't be so special to have women leaders. We should just have great leaders across the board.

[00:27:36] And I'm a big believer that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. And I think what excites me

[00:27:42] the most about seeing leaders like yourself, seeing so many of my colleagues now in positions,

[00:27:46] is we can create opportunities, whether it's internships, whether it's being thoughtful about

[00:27:51] some major project we know will be successful or an organization. How do we bring more young women

[00:27:57] along? Because that's, I think, fundamentally the way to change things, right? And while I see,

[00:28:02] the other place I see this is I see more women in leadership positions, more C-suite positions,

[00:28:07] but I still think there is a barrier at the CEO level and the board level.

[00:28:10] Yeah. And so I think that we have to be intentional kind of about both extremes,

[00:28:14] the uber high level and then the youngest level. That is profound. And just to sort of like double

[00:28:22] click on your points. I mean, those years, the twenties to thirties, okay. If you can take 10 years of hard

[00:28:29] work for a woman who is aspiring to leadership and condense it to five to eight, okay. You've,

[00:28:37] you are accelerating, you know, the gender equity gap, you know, tenfold, like just easily. And those

[00:28:45] critical moments at the earlier stages of the career are absolutely unpowerful and powerful women

[00:28:52] like you going in plucking and helping, showing the way, clearing some ground critical. And then

[00:28:58] similarly at the, you know, other end, the C-suite, you know, where you can sort of get jammed,

[00:29:04] you know, and just like, that's where the next level, the next leap, but there is fewer of them

[00:29:10] to make the leap. Like there's more pushing and pulling needed there too. Everything in between

[00:29:15] we're actually kind of doing okay. You know, I would just say broadly, but those are two

[00:29:21] really impactful spots. I'm so glad you highlighted that.

[00:29:25] And I also just, I have one more point, Lori, also, you know, so many people that have helped me

[00:29:29] in my career have been men actually, because I think for our generation, right there were just,

[00:29:33] there weren't as many female leaders, but I've had extraordinary male mentors. And I think we find

[00:29:40] mentorship in many places. And we have many men who either just think like that or have daughters and

[00:29:45] sisters and wives and are more than willing. So I think we also need to be mindful that anyone that

[00:29:51] wants to help, right, is certainly welcome. And it needs to be very much a, I'm a big, maybe because

[00:29:58] I'm, you know, South Asian, I'm a big believer in karma, but so many people help me. And I very,

[00:30:04] I'm very thoughtful about paying it forward. And so I think we have to create that, that culture that

[00:30:08] when you're given an opportunity, that when you get it, how do you look back and also bring some

[00:30:12] folks with you? And we can't all bring everyone, right? But if everyone brings one, two, three people,

[00:30:17] it's a culture shift, right? It's an enormous shift. Well, I think we'll close out on that,

[00:30:22] Gita. This has been just an amazing, inspiring women conversation. And I've been speaking with Dr.

[00:30:28] Gita Nair and Gita, you are an inspiration to many. And I just also personally want to thank you for the

[00:30:36] enormous impact you're having on so many important problems of the time. Thank you so very much.

[00:30:44] Thank you, Lori. Thanks for having me. This has been an episode of Inspiring Women with Lori McGraw.

[00:30:50] Please subscribe, rate, and review. We are produced at Executive Podcast Solutions.

[00:30:55] More episodes can be found on inspiringwomen.show. I am Lori McGraw, and thank you for listening.