Showing the data is the easy part. What you say after it decides whether the doctor remembers anything.
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath describe why some ideas last and others vanish. The ones that last are simple and concrete. A forest plot is neither. It becomes useful only when the rep translates it into something a doctor can picture.
The ladder I use with reps:
- The study. Read the full approved paper, not only the slide.
- The core. What is the one finding that matters to his patients? Drop the rest.
- The patient. Put that finding into a patient he sees every week.
- The sentence. Say it in words he could repeat to a colleague.
The second step is the hardest. Reps love every result in the paper, so they present all of them. The doctor leaves with none.
One rule: the sentence must stay faithful to the approved data. Simple is not the same as stretched.
“The data earns the doctor's trust. The sentence after it earns his memory.”
Lesson 9 of 15 in Step 5: The visit, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.