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Dr. Grunch – Using Social Media to Influence Your Bottom Line
147 Plays1 year ago
Dr. Betsy Grunch is a highly talented board-certified neurosurgeon based in Georgia, and if that isn’t impressive enough, she also happens to be a social media influencer who shares her content with millions of followers across TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn under the name LadySpineDoc. She joins us on this week’s episode to talk about how her use of social media has helped increase her case volume, the pros and cons of having such a large following, and how other healthcare professionals can get started.
In our news recap, we’ll cover a former nursing school president who awarded 7,600 fake diplomas, a crisis amongst rural hospitals, the impact of weekend warrior activity on heart health, and of course, end the news segment with a positive story about new lollipop testers that can detect strep throat and other illnesses.
Articles Mentioned:
Former nursing school president sentenced to 21 months for awarding 7.6K fake diplomas
More Than 30% of Rural Hospitals Are at Risk of Closure, Report Warns
Does a ‘weekend warrior’ physical activity pattern prevent cardiovascular disease?
Lollipop Testers Detect Illness and 'Sweeten' Diagnosis
Brought to you by HST Pathways.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to This Week in Surgery Centers. If you're in the ASC industry, then you're in the right place. Every week, we'll start the episode off by sharing an interesting conversation we had with our featured guests, and then we'll close the episode by recapping the latest news impacting surgery centers. We're excited to share with you what we have, so let's get started and see what the industry's been up to.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Here's what you can expect on today's episode.
Dr. Betsy Grunch Joins the Episode
00:00:32
Speaker
Dr. Betsy Grunch is an extremely talented board-certified neurosurgeon based in Georgia. And if that isn't impressive enough, she also is a social media influencer who shares her content with millions of followers across TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, primarily under the name LadySpineDoc.
Impact of Social Media on Healthcare
00:00:52
Speaker
She joins us on this week's episode to talk about how her use of social media has helped her increase her case volume, the pros and cons of having such a large following, and also how other healthcare professionals can get started on social.
00:01:07
Speaker
In our news recap, we'll cover a former nursing school president who awarded 7,600 fake diplomas, a crisis amongst rural hospitals, the impact of weekend warrior activity on heart health, and of course, end the new segment with a positive story about new lollipop testers that can detect strep throat and other illnesses. Hope everyone enjoys the episode and here's what's going on this week in Surgery Centers.
00:01:39
Speaker
Hi,
Dr. Grunch's Social Media Journey
00:01:40
Speaker
Dr. Grunch. Welcome to the podcast. Hi. Thanks for having me. Oh, please. The pleasure is ours. I am so excited to have you on today because I feel like for the most part, social media is not leveraged to its fullest potential in the healthcare industry, but you are certainly doing the opposite and have really leaned in. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. So my name is Betsy Grunch. I am a board certified neurosurgeon. I do a private practice neurosurgery in Gainesville, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta. And I've been in practice for about 10 years now since 2013. So yeah. And then I know we're going to talk about this today, but I've been on social media for a few years now and I've gained some following and excited to talk about that today.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yes. Well, gain some following is an understatement, but when did your journey on social star and which platform did you start with? So I've actually been a, just a personal user of social media platforms for years. I love just connecting with outside world and.
00:02:45
Speaker
seeing what my friends are doing and things like that for forever. So I've always posted on my personal page and enjoy doing that. But really, you know, professionally, I struggled to find that like, how can I utilize this in a good way where it would be seen? Well, for a while, I really didn't know where to start. So.
00:03:03
Speaker
I actually started my Instagram and Facebook page probably right when I first started practice. I didn't start posting consistently or would even venture to call myself a content creator or anything like that until the pandemic. So.
00:03:16
Speaker
You know, like most medical professionals and surgeons in particular, we were struggling during the pandemic and when everything was shut down and people didn't want to get out and see their doctor. So my PA and myself, we were just sitting in the office one day and we were kind of bored. So we made a video and posted that and it was fun and it was.
00:03:35
Speaker
I received well. And so we were like, all right, well, I just kind of was delving into doing
Humanizing Healthcare Content
00:03:41
Speaker
that. And I posted another video, I think maybe a week or two later. I posted on Instagram initially, but I actually filmed it and put it on TikTok. And I didn't really use TikTok that much, but it's such a unique platform where you can really gain popularity with people that don't really follow you. And a video at the time, I would call it viral, but it was really just neat to see the engagement.
00:04:04
Speaker
and the kind of people that I reached with just that one video about being a female neurosurgeon.
00:04:09
Speaker
It just kind of grew from there. I decided that I wanted to be consistent just to see where it went. So I dedicated myself to posting videos daily for a few months to see where it went. And the traction just took off from there and the rest is history, I guess. Yeah, that's awesome. And I think this will probably be a theme throughout, but it sounds like it came so organically and so natural to you. And it was something you were doing personally anyway. So you're like, Hey, let me see how I can fit this in professionally as well.
00:04:39
Speaker
How do you determine what content to film? Do you plan it ahead or is it more in the moment?
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah. Most of my content is organic on my platform. I talk about a little bit about everything. I'm going to talk about medicine. I talk being the mom and talk about things I do myself. So it's more of like my page and not really my practices page. So it's just what's going on in the moment or where my mind stream is going at the time and what I want to talk about. But you really have to be successful on social media. You have to be.
00:05:10
Speaker
very consistent and viewers are going to expect a certain product and know that, you know, that you're going to produce a certain quantity of content or quality of content. And so for me personally to try to just maintain that balance of what I do in education, which is one of the mainstays of my platform is I do, and I'm sure people that follow me know I do a case study or discuss this particular topic once a week. And so that really helps me stay consistent. So I know.
00:05:38
Speaker
On Sunday and Monday, I've got two things I'm going to talk about every single week. And that's been the roots of my platform and really I think helped me grow and gain a consistent following because people know that it's going to be always there. And then if there's some stuff that comes up in the news as a hot topic or something that's relevant to me, make an effort to do that as well. Yeah. And you had mentioned in the beginning, you challenged yourself to post daily.
00:06:02
Speaker
in that timeframe where some of the videos we were posting getting no attention at all, and then one would get a lot of attention and vice versa, because I feel like a lot of people struggle with they'll post consistently for a week and they're getting nothing, so then they feel defeated and fall off. What was that like for you? Yeah, I think
00:06:22
Speaker
I would compare social media to like a weight loss journey because I've gone through that myself too. But you can't just pump it out and do a hardcore diet for a week and expect results and then be frustrated and give up. It's about consistency. And yeah, you're right. I mean, some videos you think are like, oh man, people are really going to connect with this. This is going to be it.
00:06:44
Speaker
And there's a variety of reasons why that could be, and it could be simple, something as simple as the lighting in the room or the audio to where the algorithm really doesn't pick up. I've learned a lot about the algorithm and how social media platform, different platforms work and what succeeds on different platforms. You know, I try not to get my head too wrapped around like, Oh my gosh, my video didn't get a lot of views or et cetera. Just, just more about the consistency and just being true to yourself about what you're putting out there.
00:07:09
Speaker
And then the followers will come. So it's more about if you're really trying to grow, it's about being consistency and staying true to what your roots are. And then people will either connect with it or they won't. So. Yeah. Do you find that there's a certain type of content that does resonate the most with your followers? You had mentioned your first file video of being a female neurosurgeon, which I would imagine peaks so many people's interest. Yeah. I think.
00:07:39
Speaker
For me personally, being in this field, being the, you know, the unicorn and so to speak, and there's not many female brain surgeons out there. I think it just, it really intrigues people into what we do. And I try to break it down on a level that's easy to understand. Cause that's really what I do in my practice every day with patients. I explain things on a really basic levels they can understand. So taking a complex something and breaking it down.
00:08:02
Speaker
very simplistically is something that I really like doing because it's not really that complicated. But I think what really resonates varies. And I think I have such a wide catch audience. It's interesting like healthcare professionals that follow me, but then I have people that follow me because of my content with my kids or my women empowerment stuff. But I think really the guts of it is just the fact that I really speak true to what I believe in, which is about
00:08:31
Speaker
health care, about simplicity in health care, about being a good mom and maintaining a good career and about women empowerment. I think a lot of that resonates with the audience. Yeah.
Challenges of Doctors on Social Media
00:08:43
Speaker
I was looking at one of your videos the other day and it was of your daughter and there were so many comments that were like, oh, I want to be a doctor so bad, but I'm so nervous. I can't have a family as well. Thank you for showing me. I can do both. So that must feel really good to see those types of comments. Yeah, it definitely does.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, because I think there's two facets of it. It's like you're almost building your personal brand on social media as well. But we also encourage from the facility level, whether it's a practice or a surgery center or hospital to get involved on social as well. So whether it is more of the company profile or a doctor's profile, what advice would you give to anyone who wants to get started and isn't quite sure where to begin?
00:09:25
Speaker
I think it's the difficult slope to try to navigate, but I think ultimately there are ways to succeed on social with breaking things down to really.
00:09:35
Speaker
push forward what your facility represents and what your business model really represents. And I think there's a really easy way to do that. There's ways that you could steer yourself in the wrong path and we can certainly venture down that pathway in a little bit. But I think that the basics of it is really just showing the human side of it. Like healthcare is so intimidating to so many patients and being in healthcare,
00:09:59
Speaker
And all of us that are in healthcare think it's so simple, but it's really intimidating to the basic person who's never had surgery before or has this upcoming surgery that may really change their whole life. And seeing the humanism in medicine, I think really helps people break down those fears and can really make you succeed. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's been so useful for me in my practice. Yeah, absolutely. And you kind of alluded to this. I think.
00:10:27
Speaker
The industry as a whole, as we mentioned, has been hesitant to dive in. I've spoken with a couple facilities about this over the years and it seems they're always like, well, my lawyer told me this and my lawyer told me that. It doesn't have to be that complicated or that risky based on the content that you post that your lawyer would need to be involved.
00:10:46
Speaker
Of course, we see stories all the time that the media loves to dive on. So at a high level, for you personally, have you experienced any negative side effects or challenges because of your social following and the content that you share?
00:11:02
Speaker
Of course, I think anybody that puts themselves out there is really going to face challenges or negativity because everybody loves to hate and everybody loves to take a 10 second video and change it into what your entire life is about. So I think that's just the natural history of being a human being. Like if you go and talk to somebody for two minutes, you're going to raise
00:11:22
Speaker
conclusions or come to a decision about how you feel about somebody. And so when you put yourself out there, you welcome that type of behavior. But I think the positive sides of it significantly outweigh the negative sides of it. And it's tough. I thought going through neurosurgery residency and working 120 hours a week and getting told that I can't be successful, et cetera, was hard. But man, putting yourself out there on social media and have every mom, Joe and pop out there
00:11:49
Speaker
saying what they think about you is really hard and then the main things that people say behind a keyboard. But I think in terms of what we're really trying to get out here is how can it be negative to you need to get attorneys involved, et cetera. I mean, you just have to be smart about what you put out there. And I think anytime you post, you really have to see all sides of how that might be taken. Like obviously we don't want to be making fun of patients or showing inappropriate content or having
00:12:17
Speaker
patient's privacy at all be questioned, but I think there are good ways of doing it as well that can really benefit everybody. Yeah, definitely. And I feel like they probably look and say, oh, she has a million followers. She'll never see this mean comment. And that's just not the case. People forget, or they don't realize there's a true human being on the other side of this account. Oh, yeah.
00:12:45
Speaker
I don't know. That's fine. I know, I know. So we would be remiss if we didn't talk about what's going on present day with Dr. Roxy, who was a plastic surgeon in Ohio who did recently lose her medical license and all the headlines, you know, they love the clickbait. They're just saying she lost her license because of TikTok, which is obviously not true. So for our listeners who might not be fully
00:13:15
Speaker
caught up on the situation. Can you share a little bit more about what's going on with Dr. Roxy and your take on the subject? Yes. I think the aesthetic industry is a really unique industry in terms of how they market themselves. I think classic surgeons being in the business of making people pretty and working with young patients and being cash pay in most practices.
00:13:41
Speaker
You use social media as one way you can really brand your content and bring people in and want to have surgery with you. It's a little different than my practice per se, but not so much. You know, I think there's a lot of plastic surgeons that are doing what she did. They show their outcomes. They show their
00:13:56
Speaker
before and after pictures. And in some instances, her and other surgeons are actually live streaming their surgeries to break down what it's like and what your experience would be if you're having surgery in her practice. And for her, I think that she did things for years, Snapchat and TikTok, where
00:14:12
Speaker
She would live stream her surgeries and show a lot about the intrinsic nature of her practice Which as long as the patient gets consent is okay. Is it ethical? That's questionable. But is it okay in terms of the patient confidentiality? Yeah, they gave their consent. But I think what was really happening is that she was engaging in the content more so than engaging in the surgery and that's where the liability
00:14:36
Speaker
The boundary has been crossed where she had, you know, terrible complications, foul perforations, multiple times during liposuction procedures, which you should never really penetrate the abdominal fascia. And to happen once or twice may be okay, but it happened over and over again and bad outcomes from her surgeries. And that's not just the one she live streamed, but I've seen some of her live streams. Literally she's operating on someone and looking and reading the comments while she's clearly distracted while she's doing her procedure.
00:15:06
Speaker
That's just kind of cringy because you really have to dedicate yourself to what your job is. And that's to take care of patients. And if a patient is under anesthesia, they're putting their life in your hands, literally, to take care of them. And some of the other stuff, you know, she supposedly had complications. Patients would call the office. The office would refrain from them to go to the emergency department and seek treatment when they had complications. And I think as a physician,
00:15:32
Speaker
Your ultimate liability is to take the best care of patients. And we're surgeons. We all operate in an industry to where we know there will be complications that happen. No surgeon is perfect. And the best thing you can do if you have a complication is be honest and do your best to take care of that problem and to make sure that patient safety is your utmost priority. And that's where she did not maintain that. And that's why she lost her license. It wasn't because of being on.
00:16:02
Speaker
social media or live streamer surgeries. And in addition to that, I believe from my review of the online information is that they warned her multiple times, like twice, 2018, 2021. And she continued to do it. And so I think once you get warned, maybe you shouldn't do it again. But if you get warned twice, man, you're just asking for trouble. Yeah. And it's a shame because.
00:16:23
Speaker
to think about the amount of schooling she had to go through and like it was her whole career and her whole life leading up to this moment and to lose it as something as silly as trying to live stream a procedure and being distracted and causing harm to your patients where
00:16:38
Speaker
If that was the type of content she wanted to show, or if any doctor wants to show, to your point with patient consent, you know, I'm thinking to myself, like, why couldn't she have just filmed it and done a voiceover afterwards explaining what was going on so that she could stay present in the moment and then give the information to her followers that they're looking for afterwards in a safe way. But it's, I guess, neither here nor there. But thank you for clarifying it because again,
00:17:04
Speaker
I know people are just going to skim the headlines and not really dive into it. And I think the healthcare industry just needs to lean into social media more. And I hate seeing things like this because I feel like it sets us back. I agree. Yeah. I think this is the way the media leans anything really is how they want it to be portrayed and they can steer the ship, so to speak. So yeah, I agree.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah. And also there's so many patients out there who are so hesitant to have surgery, non-elective surgery, surgery, they need to improve the quality and longevity of their lives. And they're already so scared to go under and already have their own anxiety about things. And then to have to go to your doctor and say, you're not going to live stream this, right? Like you're going to be focused. I guess that's just sad. And it shouldn't be like that. Yeah. I think that's the part that's really frustrating to me is realizing that those patients knew that was happening.
00:17:58
Speaker
But patients, like you said, that are going into surgery, they have concerns over turning themselves over to someone and being put to sleep and not having awareness of what's going on. And for anyone to think that a physician or anyone would take pictures of videos or live stream their surgery without their consent, that's not how things work. So I think it's really, like you said, it set us back a little bit in gaining confidence from patients and trust from patients.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yes.
Social Media's Effect on Trust and Business
00:18:29
Speaker
Well, switching gears to a more positive note and back to you. With your social media presence, how has it impacted your practice? Have you seen our patients calling from all over the country trying to get in with you? Has it affected your caseload finances? How has it played out for you? Yeah, it's been crazy. I mean, being in the spine and neuro
00:18:53
Speaker
is a field where you're dealing with pain and patients that are in pain are really desperate for relief. And then this field, you know, you have patients that get told no by providers and they don't know why they're hurting. And so like I said, they see somebody like me who talks about similar symptoms and they think that I can help. So yeah, I get calls daily from people from other States, even other countries. It's wild. Like kind of people message me through Instagram or my email, et cetera.
00:19:20
Speaker
I mean, hundreds a day on DMs or email that I just, I can't do that. So, you know, I strictly really focus on the patients in my community. And if I have someone that's willing to travel and do the things that they need to do to get safe care, I'm willing to see them. But to have someone have a spine surgery and then fly across the country and I can't provide the appropriate post-operative care seems like a real, not only liability to me, but I'm not really doing that patient justice. So I really,
00:19:48
Speaker
gauge those patients very carefully in terms of how I can really provide good care to them. And I think it has significantly impacted my business. I'm already a very busy surgeon in my community, but being on social breaks down the boundary of people thinking that they know me before they come and see me or they have trust in me before they even make an appointment. And that's really flattering because I haven't met them. I caution people that do that because you can gain a certain amount of confidence from someone. I think it's great.
00:20:19
Speaker
But I still want to engage in that patient care in a safe manner. So the bottom line is yes, it has grown tremendously. It's put a lot of extra work on me and my team to filter through what's appropriate and what I can do my best to help with. And it's been, even with the patients that I see consistently, it's fun because they know my family, they feel like they connect with me in a way that makes me more approachable.
00:20:44
Speaker
And I think ultimately allows me to provide them better care because they have that trust in me. So I think it's been really positive thing. Yeah. That's awesome. I need to know, does anybody ever bring you headbands as gifts when they come into the office for you? All the time. All the time. Gifts for my kids, gifts for me. Yeah. It's very sweet. I love it. It's so, it's fun.
00:21:09
Speaker
I have people mail me stuff. I get random gifts of anything from makeup to like headbands to scrubs to clothes to whatever. It's very sweet. Yeah. That's awesome. So if you had to just boil it down, you would say that your presence on social media has helped increase revenue at your practice. Absolutely. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. I think it really is the positive way of growing your business, whether it's your
00:21:38
Speaker
brand, what you put out there versus just your bottom line and what your really roots of your practice is. It's going to make people feel like you're more approachable and want them to want to seek care from you. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Final question. We do this every week with our guests. What is one thing our listeners can do this week to improve their practice or improve their surgery center? I think on the same lines that we're talking about, communication, I think
00:22:07
Speaker
that really patients desire to come to a place of healthcare where they feel safe, where they feel understood and where they feel comfortable. And all that comes down to good communication with your timing of surgery, arrival times, your post-operative care, and the time that them and their families within the facility.
00:22:30
Speaker
I think social and other platforms, even communication platforms like apps and stuff that I use have really helped open up that communication boundary. Even with my surgery center, we've integrated a few platforms that really makes the entire process of scheduling surgery through your post-operative time. Very simple, very easy to reach. And I think that's going to help.
00:22:54
Speaker
your center become more successful to gain business and want to have people to have surgery at that particular place or from that particular provider. Great. Well, that is the perfect way to end. Thank you so much, Dr. Grunch. We really appreciate your time and for you coming on today. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Bye.
Healthcare News Recap
00:23:19
Speaker
As always, it has been a busy week in healthcare, so let's jump right in. Our first article comes from Becker's ASC and is some troubling news. A former nursing school president has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for awarding at least 7,600 fake diplomas.
00:23:38
Speaker
So Johanna Napoleon, former president and owner of the Palm Beach School of Nursing in West Palm Beach, Florida, will not only be going to prison, but must also pay $3.5 million in fines. During the trial, Johanna pled guilty to selling fake degrees
00:23:56
Speaker
for between $6,000 and $18,000. And purchasers of the fake degrees also received transcripts showing that they had completed the necessary coursework. Some of the buyers actually went on to pass the national licensing exam, becoming registered nurses around the country.
00:24:14
Speaker
State boards have been trying to locate nurses who receive these fake degrees with the New York Nursing Board asking 903 nurses in March to either submit proof of appropriate education or surrender their licenses. This is obviously deeply concerning to have nurses actively working and caring for patients
00:24:34
Speaker
that have fake nursing degrees. And I hope they're able to locate everyone so they can rectify the situation. And again, that school was the Palm Beach School of Nursing in West Palm Beach, Florida.
00:24:48
Speaker
According to MedCity News, a new report highlights that more than 600 rural hospitals in the US, which represents over 30% of the country's rural hospitals, are facing financial instability and are at risk of closure. The report identifies two main issues contributing to the dire financial situation, low financial reserves, and inadequate payments from private health plans.
00:25:16
Speaker
So to summarize the issues at a high level, part of the reason rural hospitals are facing financial difficulties is because private health plans often reimburse them inadequately. And contrary to the assumption that private insurers pay more than Medicare and Medicaid, rural hospitals actually receive lower payments from private health plans, which is causing a lot of issues for them. To prevent closures,
00:25:40
Speaker
The report is suggesting that private insurers need to increase their payments to rural hospitals. That'll be huge. Sharing that a payment boost that ensures the hospital remains operational would require approximately $4 billion annually, which does sound like a ton of money, and it is a ton of money, but it's really a small fraction of the total national healthcare spend.
00:26:03
Speaker
And this next piece was interesting to me. The report calls for standby capacity payments to be issued to rural hospitals, recognizing the importance of their availability to their communities. And the concept here is very similar to how firefighters and police officers are compensated. So if you think about that, if you think of it as like a firefighter would only get paid for the time he or she is actively putting out a fire verse when they're on call.
00:26:32
Speaker
So that's the difference there. So they're saying that if they can start reimbursing them for these standby capacity payments, that would make a huge difference as well. Primarily because the closure of these rural hospitals poses a significant threat to the country as a whole in a way you might not be thinking about it. So there's a lot of farms, branches, mines, drilling sites, wind farms, et cetera.
00:26:56
Speaker
that are primarily situated in these rural regions, and they depend greatly on access to adequate healthcare services to attract and retain the necessary workforce. So this report is saying that if these rural hospitals do close, it also could potentially pose a threat to the country's food supply and energy production, which
00:27:16
Speaker
Face value kind of sounds like a stretch, but after reading the full article, it makes a ton of sense. And also in general, outside of that, these hospitals play a crucial role. They provide accessible healthcare without the need to travel long distances, which most community members would not be able to do so.
00:27:34
Speaker
They create jobs and economic stability in these areas, and they often provide health education programs, preventative care initiatives, outreach efforts to promote healthy lifestyles and disease prevention. So keeping these rural hospitals open is critical to the country's overall well-being. This third story by OR Manager, they're asking the question, does a weekend warrior physical activity pattern prevent cardiovascular disease?
00:28:03
Speaker
So the term weekend warrior refers to a person who participates in physical activities or sports mainly on the weekends while having a more sedentary lifestyle during the week. Primarily, these people work regular nine to five jobs or long shifts, followed by other commitments during the week, which limits their time for exercise.
00:28:25
Speaker
During the weekends, however, they're hiking, biking, playing sports, running, going to the gym and getting it all in within that 48 hour window.
00:28:35
Speaker
So this study was done by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT in Harvard. And they examined whether moderate to vigorous physical activity concentrated in one to two days of the week presents the same cardiovascular benefits as somebody who has their physical activity more evenly distributed throughout the week.
00:28:59
Speaker
Physical activity data from roughly 89,000 individuals was analyzed with a median follow-up time of 6.3 years. Both physical activity patterns were associated with similarly lower risks of heart attacks and heart failure and just general heart issues. For context, these individuals were typically exercising for about 150 minutes or more over the course of the two days.
00:29:26
Speaker
So basically, the researchers concluded that yes, physical activity concentrated in one to two days is just as impactful as more regular activity. So if you are a weekend warrior, perhaps there's no need to feel guilty that you aren't finding the time to work out more during the week as well. I thought that was really interesting.
00:29:46
Speaker
And to end our new segment on a positive note, scientists have developed a new lollipop-based saliva collection system for diagnostic testing, aiming to make procedures a little easier for people, especially for children. The system uses a spoon-like plastic stick with candy coating and spiral grooves
00:30:07
Speaker
to collect saliva and bacteria from the mouth and throat. In a study comparing it to the conventional spit tubes and mouth swabs, the lollipops were just as effective, detecting target bacteria 100% of the time. Participants naturally found the lollipop method more sanitary and offering a potentially more enjoyable and acceptable way to test for illnesses like strep throat.
00:30:35
Speaker
And that news story officially wraps up this week's podcast. Thank you as always for spending a few minutes of your week with us. Make sure to subscribe or leave a review on whichever platform you're listening from. I hope you have a great day and we'll see you again next week.