Written by: Tricia Brouk, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Being able to support speakers in using their voices for impact is a privilege and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Dwayne, Founder of RxFaith, to discuss how he’s using his voice to empower himself, his patients and other physicians.
Dr. Dwayne, you have been speaking recently about self love, acceptance and why there are no hard conversations. How does this impact your work as an oncology surgeon?
No hard conversations is ultimately about principled and disciplined engagement in the work of self-acceptance. Personally, this involves daily structured internal conflict resolution so that in conversations with others I may show up with intention and on purpose. This approach aligns personal well-being with the ability to care for others. In fact it is the core principle of my approach to corporate physician wellness. To paraphrase one of our greatest modern-day marketers and entertainers, “If you can’t care for yourself, how in the hell are you gonna care for anybody else…can I get an amen?”
At what point in your career did you realize there was a need to empower other physicians and how that could create a healthier future for all patients?
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about this issue. It is increasingly obvious that patients and providers are disillusioned with the current state of affairs and that no one views our current system as sustainable or ideal.
A recent NYT editorial describes the demoralization of the physician workforce as well as its projected impact on our ability to meet society’s health care needs. So the need for a principled wellness approach has in my view never been clearer.
What does it mean to empower other physicians?
My approach is two fold. First, I want to offer a sustainable and collaborative healthcare delivery framework modeled on the deconstruction of barriers between patients and physicians. Any barrier that consumes time and resources without delivering value should be eliminated so that providers can invest more intellectual and emotional capital in themselves, their patients and their communities.
Just as importantly, however, we must integrate “nontraditional” healing modalities into our therapeutic approaches. My vision is a network of physicians, coaches, mental health therapists, data scientists, and food service providers leveraging the power of eastern and western medicine with one goal in mind: moving the conversation past disease to the maximization of the whole human person.
Your podcast is called Words of Love, can you share a bit about the genesis of this show and how you see it contributing to the conversation?
It seems to be a truism that the people/situations/conversations we avoid are likely to contain keys to our paths forward and personal transformation. I describe such a conversation with my grandfather in Episode 00 Confession. My goal in each episode is to offer the listener a real-life example of faith and love overcoming limits and fear. My goal with the podcast is to enlarge the community of faith in human potential and belief in our collective future.
What would you say to entrepreneurs, CEO’s professionals who are avoiding the hard conversations?
Practice curiosity. Be curious about your avoidance. Reframe “the hard conversation.” Seek to know what the resistance to engage with another reveals. If you can accept this truth, then execute. If you can’t accept the truth, then persist in your curiosity and examination of the issue. Be reminded that those who change societies, disrupt industries, and answer big questions practice open-mindedness and relentless curiosity. They remain teachable and reject rigid thinking.
Tricia Brouk, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tricia Brouk is an international award-winning director. She has worked in theater, film, and television for three decades. Tricia founded The Big Talk Academy where she certifies speakers in the art of public speaking. She was the executive producer of Speakers Who Dare and TEDxLincolnSquare and now The Big Talk Live. She is currently being featured in a new documentary called Big Stages, which highlights the transformation of her speakers. Tricia’s commitment and devotion to inclusion are a priority as all of her shows, events, and communities are diverse. She curates and hosts the Speaker Salon in NYC, The Big Talk, an award-winning podcast on iTunes and YouTube. The Influential Voice: Saying What You Mean for Lasting Legacy was a 1 New Release on Amazon in December 2020. She was awarded Top Director of 2019 by the International Association of Top Professionals and Top Ten Speaker Coaches in Yahoo Finance in 2021. Her documentaries have received critical acclaim—winning Best Documentary Short at The Olympus Film Festival and Los Angeles Movie Awards. Tricia has spoken at Forbes, Pride Global, New York Public Library, I Heart My Life Live, and The National Organization for Rare Disorders.
