Infuse Infuse 2 December 2017 | Page 7

neurosurgeon Dr Sanjay Gupta.
His topic: Why do certain medical
messages work or stick with people?
Dr Gupta shared that he likes to
consider whether the stories start a
conversation with others as evidence
of impact. Do people hear the
story, and share it with others, he
wondered? A successful story, he
posits, will create change in people’s
lives. He left us with this challenge to
think about: “How do you create that
conversation to happen continuously
with consumers?”
Of particular note, I followed with
great interest the Academy’s goal of
encouraging dietitians to take the
pledge of professional civility. This is
a topic that I have been thinking a lot
about lately, and I’d like to share my
viewpoint.
I believe there are lots of things we
agree on as dietitians, so let’s focus
on and celebrate those. At the same
time, we must continue to debate
issues, as this is critical for the future of
our profession -- but we should do so
respectfully, and ideally by speaking
with colleagues, rather than shaming or
bullying one another on social media.
My hope is that we focus on our end
goal: our clients. What do they want and
need? And perhaps we’ll be educated
ourselves, along the way, by another
dietitian’s approach or perspective.
Kimbal Musk, co-founder of The
Kitchen and brother of famous
entrepreneur Elon Musk, spoke on
why “food is the new internet – the
future of food”. A trailblazer in the
food industry, advancing indoor
farming in shipping containers,
school learning gardens, and farm to
table restaurants, Kimbal’s passion
comes from his mother, Maye Musk,
a dietitian. Kimbal punctuated his
presentation by enthusing, “it’s never
been a better time for dietitians to
shine in today’s food revolution!”
My biggest take-away from FNCE?
A presentation by Ted Souder,
Google’s Head of Industry
Retail, on the concept of “moonshot
thinking” at Google. Ted asked us,
“What if?” His point was, what if
we started all our conversations
with “What if?”, and started to
get comfortable with being
UNcomfortable, and took bigger
risks?
Physicist and highly regarded scientist
Dr Michio Kaku was the closing
speaker. He took us on a tour of what
the future might hold for medicine
– and how what we once thought
was science fiction is now becoming
reality. Think: intelligent paper, 3D
printing, supersonic jets, and flying
cars – just like the Jetsons!
So now I turn it over to you,
our esteemed Infuse readers:
What if?
P.S. Click here to see our snapshot of trends emerging from the conference.
© Dietitian Connection
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Infuse | December 2017