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In S7 E 5 I am delighted to welcome Dr Andrew Tagg to continue our theme of communication and expand or thinking and doing in presenting.
Andrew is an emergency physician with a special interest in paediatrics, and one of the co-founders of the website Don't Forget The Bubbles. He wears many hats with a portfolio career that spans clinical medicine, workforce wellbeing leadership, education and research and as faculty for the DFTB international conference and globally renowned paediatric education platform. Andrew spends much of his time thinking, and now writing, about the art and practice of effective communication in medicine and healthcare. In this conversation we dive deeper into his most recent creation Speak Human, a newsletter dedicated to this topic.
We explore some of the frameworks, practical ideas and content of his newsletter and workshops. He challenges some of our ( my) pre-existing thinking and practice in this area and I left with truly practical and actionable ideas to work with.
Some of my takeaways on Speaking Human and Building a Talk That Lands
- Start with the message - what are the one or two things you actually want them to take away? Distil ruthlessly. No pain by PowerPoint.
- Use What → So What → Now What to build and test every point. Rather than “what do I want to say?” start asking “what do I want them to hear and why should they care?”
- Make it concrete, not abstract - a can of cola communicates a newborn's circulating blood volume better than any number does
- Audiences feel your nervous system before they hear your words - manage your own state first.
- The Power of the Pause - silence can one of the hardest but most powerful tools a speaker has
- Use AI as a tool to augment your content and make resources more accessible to your audience.
- Fundamentally you are not the audience, and you're there to serve them - know what you want them to learn, feel, and take away, and make it easy for them
Thank you Andrew. I learned so much in this session. You can learn more from Andrew and about his work by subscribing to his Speak Human Newsletter linked below.
Links and References:
Speak Human newsletter: https://www.andrewjtagg.com/newsletter
The infamous Lego study:
“Everything is awesome: Don't forget the Lego” — Tagg, A., Roland, D., Leo, G.S., Knight, K., Goldstein, H., Davis, T. and on behalf of Don't Forget The Bubbles (2019), J Paediatr Child Health, 55: 921-923: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jpc.14309
Andrew's Emotional Contagion Talk:
Don't Forget The Bubbles — “Mirror, Mirror”: https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/mirror-mirror/
Access the full context from CCIM 2026 including the audio context from Andrew's workshop "Speak So People Listen"
Creative Careers in Medicine 2026 — Metamorphosis: https://creativecareersinmedicine.vhx.tv/checkout/ccim-2026-metamorphosis/purchase
The Mind Full Medic Podcast is proudly sponsored by the MBA NSW-ACT Find out more about the charitable organisation supporting doctors and their families and/ or donate today at www.mbansw.org.au
Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care professional. Moreover views expressed here are our own and do not necessarily reflect those of our employers or other official organisations.
