20. The literal writer's voice
What do you get when you combine a doctor with a best selling author with a childhood friend? The incredible Dr Sonia Henry. We chat about her debut novel GOING UNDER, how she dealt with national media attention from it and the one thing Sonia believes doctors need to be better communicators.
Transcript
Sally: Would you consider yourself a writer or a speaker? Trick question. The two go hand in hand. Voltaire actually said "writing is the painting of the voice." Love that. And in this episode I chat to an author about the relationship between writing and speaking. Now this author also happens to be a doctor and she also happens to be one of my very best friends, which is why she got the last guest spot for season one of That Voice Podcast. It's not the last episode - that's coming up next week. This is an uncharacteristically long intro, so let's get stuck into it. I can't wait to share with you my chat with the lovely Dr Sonia Henry.
I'm Sally Prosser, you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters and unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence. This is the podcast for you.
It's my absolute pleasure to introduce Sonia Henry to the podcast today. She's a doctor who also wrote a best selling novel, as you do. Now the book is called Going Under. It's a fiction, but it shines a light on the very real issues of bullying and harassment in our hospitals. I will be shamelessly plugging the book throughout the episode, which I make no apologies for, partly because I thought of the title Going Under. Son, thank you so much for chatting to me on your Sunday morning, but you know, you've known me for more than half your life. So I suppose you couldn't really say no.
Sonia: So that's my pleasure Sal you know, they're happy to speak on That Voice Podcast, you have been my voice inspiration for so many years.
Sally: So my first question's always the same. It's going to have to be a bit double barreled for you. So we'll start off with your job as a doctor. So could you do your job as a doctor if you lost your voice?
Sonia: Well it would be very difficult, particularly considering I work as a GP. So without my voice, I don't think I would be able to communicate with my patients at all. I mean, I suppose we would write to each other, but it would be very hard. I think communication is a very important aspect of practicing effective medicine.
Sally: Yeah, absolutely. And do you think you could do your job as an author if you lost your voice?
Sonia: Well, I suppose that comes down to thinking about the internal voice. I mean I think if you're an external communicator or you sort of engage with people and ideas, then you'd have a fairly active internal voice. So I suppose with that, without either of those, no I wouldn't be able to write because you know as a writer you're always thinking about things. So just this morning I was talking to my housemate about ideas I have for my next book and throwing them around and it's those conversations really help you decide, you know, all of a sudden where a narrative arc is going to go. So yeah, I think you definitely need your voice.
Sally: Yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking of calling this episode something about the writer's voice.
Sonia: Good title actually, because there's this idea of when you write you don't need to speak, but actually I do a lot of speaking about ideas and that kind of thing, which is very helpful I think to formulate, you know, storylines.
Sally: Sonia's book is called Going Under. It's an amazing read. It's very, very funny. And it also exposes lots of challenges that happen within the hospital system and Son, when I read it, I would say that poor communication was at the root of a lot of things that your character struggles with, wouldn't you say?
Sonia: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I think that communication is often lacking or effective communication is really lacking inside hospitals. Just the way people interact with each other can be very poor. And when there's no communication or poor communication, usually that's when bad things happen ie mistakes or just, you know, feeling like isolated or alone. Yeah.
Sally: If you had to generalize, how would you describe the style of communication in a typical hospital?
Sonia: Well it's sort of contrived in some way. So, you know, you have a paging system and you have phone calls that you have to make and that kind of thing. But I think it's very old-school. I think that the, I mean, the fact that we still use pages, it's actually pretty ridiculous. I'm sure there'd be a better way to communicate to someone than a beeping small box - kind of harasses you. But you know, and also people are very short with each other and sometimes you have to be in stressful situations obviously. But generally think someone said to me about my book I can't believe people still communicate with each other like that in an environment like a hospital. And I go, well, yeah, I mean, I guess when you're stressed and when you're busy and what happens, communication breaks down and then bad things happen from that.
Sally: Yeah. And when you're communicating with patients, like people are often in there in some of the most stressful times of their life, aren't they? And so yeah, it'd be challenging to, you know, go from being spoken to by your superior essentially. And then having to not speak that way to someone who walks in as a patient.
Sonia: Yeah. I mean, they have all these acronyms and things that doctors are meant to learn, like 'how to break bad news,' you know, and how to do this and how to do that. But in the end, I just think that, you know, naturally we just need to be a lot kinder and nicer to each other and communication may stem from that. I don't really think I need an acronym about how to speak appropriately to a patient or a colleague, but unfortunately we're still in that vein of thinking, sadly.
Sally: Yeah, it's a bit crazy, isn't it? There's a chapter in the book, it's really emotional where you have to tell man that his wife had died. How do you prepare yourself to deliver such difficult news and often to people that you don't know?
Sonia: Yeah, well, I think that, well, you don't really, and that's the problem with being, particularly a junior doctor, that you're often in situations that you're really not prepared for and people don't really know how to prepare you. And that's okay. Sometimes we can't prepare ourselves for everything, but then there's not really the support afterwards to help you look back and reflect and think, how could I have done that better? Because you know, it's a bit of a sign of weakness to kind of say, Oh well I had to tell someone that their wife had died, but I felt really bad about it. It's not really, it's kind of like this idea of, Oh, you just got to get on with the job sort of thing. So then you never really learn how to take those things better. So I think you're never prepared for something like that. And in the end I always found the most effective way was just to be a human being and that way you could interact with someone else on the basis of your mutual humanity rather than the doctor, patient kind of interacting I guess.
Sally: Yeah, absolutely. The book also describes how Kitty feels like the hospital system, like made her feel less likely to use her voice, I guess, to speak out about issues that she otherwise would have. So without giving too much away, there's a sexual harassment situation and Kitty says, Oh my gosh, I would have always thought that I'd speak out about something like this, but she can't.
Sonia: Yes, that's true. And I think when you are, and I think this is across the board with life generally or other workplaces or scenarios, whatever, when you're in situations where certain people have lots of power and you know, you don't have much power, I think that's when you lose your ability to speak out or you know, literally use your voice and you know, as you would say, and I think that is true throughout history. It's when people stop being able to speak about things they perceive to be unjust, that society kind of just disintegrates. And I think anyone would agree with that, right? Like it's the same with the written word or the spoken word, like when you feel like you can't speak or when they start burning the books, you know, forms of communication breakdown, that's when people can abuse power.
Sally: We often talk about the metaphorical voice being suppressed, but it really does also relate to the physical voice when people feel like they don't, you know, have a seat at the table or have an opportunity to say what they want to, then their own physical voice will become smaller. It's pretty interesting.
Sonia: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's why communication is so important and it's when we don't communicate properly that the wheels fall off the wagon, so to speak.
Sally: Yes. So Sonia and I, we've known each other since before high school actually. And it's so crazy. It's like here we are all grown up and you're being a guest on my podcast.
Sonia: Full circle. Full circle.
Sally: Full circle. Absolutely. One of the things that we used to enjoy together was public speaking and debating. I was always the first speaker. Sonia, you were the amazing third speaker. Do you think that growing up, doing debating and speaking and performing and all those kinds of things are helping you now?
Sonia: I'd say so. It must because I think you have to think on your feet, you know, being interviewed on TV and stuff, particularly talking about something fairly controversial that I have found myself having to do and live to air I've found to be quite, quite stressful. But you sort of, I suppose I've used those skills that I learned doing that, particularly being a third speaker as a debator probably actually helped me more than what I've realized because you get used to thinking on your feet. And definitely the public speaking we did when we were kids would have helped me for sure. My agent said actually, I was on radio Melbourne, and she said, Oh you'd think you'd had a bit of media training. And I thought no, but it must be, must be what we did when we were younger. You know, must've helped somewhere along the line.
Sally: Yes. And I want to talk to you about this because you've done a lot of national media with the book and you were like actually on the couch, you know, with Lisa and Michael, on ABC news breakfast.
Sonia: Yeh it was stressful.
Sally: And I want to ask you about it because you know, I've done a bit of media and I do media training and it's really, really hard even for people who've been through all the training to do it. So how did you, I don't want to use the word cope, but how did you manage to not only come across well but manage to do so much media in such a short amount of time?
Sonia: Well look, I suppose I didn't really have a choice. And also I think being a doctor you're used to dealing with a lot of stressful things happening very quickly and just getting on with it. So there wasn't really time for me to kind of be like, Oh, I can't do this. I don't have the time. I just had to do it. And I think as a doctor you're used to dealing with challenges and you're used to putting up with a lot of shit, so to speak and, and just putting your head down and getting on with that. And I knew that I didn't have a choice and I also knew that I was talking about it and it was pretty controversial that some people will have worked by and so I couldn't really crumble at the last, you know?
Sally: Yeah. And so did you like write down some points, like plan the main things that you wanted to get across?
Sonia: Only for one interview I did, which was on Radio National and I didn't even use them cause it was so quick. But I had in my head things that I would say and things that I would be careful to avoid saying I sort of practiced that. I was used to talking about the book and I was used to talking about the material. So that helped. And I knew the material very well. If you have an idea of what message you're trying to send and you stick with your key messages.
Sally: Yeah. Very good. Yeah. And did you do any physical voice warmups before you went on?
Sonia: No. In fact, my first radio interview was after my book launch and I was incredibly hung over. I thought I'm not going to sound very good. But anyway, I got through it.
Sally: I know. I remember thinking that night. Like we were, we were all pretty enjoying ourselves. I'm thinking, Oh my God. There's no way I could do national media the next day.
Sonia: Yeah. but yeah, I did a radio interview for ABC Radio Perth last week and I'm doing a few talks and stuff, but I haven't really missed the media coverage, I've got to say, it was quite, quite intense. And you feel very under scrutiny and yeah, I think it'd be different if I was writing about it just a fictional book about whatever. But because I was writing about something in the field I still work in still work in it was quite stressful.
Sally: Yeah. But the thing is, I suppose if it wasn't a bit controversial, it wouldn't have garnered the attention in the first place. So it's a bit of a catch 22.
Sonia: Yeh, bit of a double-edged sword - you have to just take what you can get. Yeah, exactly.
Sally: And I hear that a sequels in the works?
Sonia: Well yeah, but I think I'm going to divert from the path. I think I want to go much more fictional. I've quite become interested in historical fiction. And I think that I was telling someone the other day I'm a bit sick of medicine and writing and talking about it at the moment, so it'd be good for me, I think as a writer to explore an entirely new genre and challenge myself a bit more. So, yeah, I think my agent's a bit disappointed. She wants a sequel, but I think I would like to try something different.
Sally: Yeah. Well I guess, you know, the it's up to you if you're the beholder of the pen, you can write whatever you like.
Sonia: That's it and you are the purveyor of the voice. I think there's that whole idea of self actualization and then realizing the reason why I write was because I like writing. I don't write because I want to please or meet expectations. I've been doing that my whole life. So you want to sit down with your laptop or your pen or whatever you want to just write what comes from your soul.
Sally: Yeah. And I really like that. I do a lot of work with the inner voice. I say, you know, your real voice, is a megaphone for your inner voice. And the confidence always comes from within and the content comes from within.
Sonia: Yeah, that's very true. But you have to know yourself enough to be able to do that and yeah.
Sally: Yes. And that's one of the greatest challenges in life, isn't it? To know oneself.
Sonia: Yes absolutely Sally as we often discuss.
Sally: Son. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you wanted to add?
Sonia: No, aside from the fact that I think you're doing great with the podcast and the voice coaching and I really enjoyed that night together at The Kennedy Awards when I saw you present. I'd like people to know that I'm also a very good filmer. I'm your go-to videographer.
Sally: If anyone's seen that video on my socials, I'm in the, either the overly sparkly, a little bit saucy dress standing on stage. And I've got two versions, I've got the professional version, but the original version was filmed by the one and only Sonia Henry.
Sonia: Thank you, thank you listeners. No Sal, it's been great I've really enjoyed the interview.
Sally: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sonia, for joining That Voice Podcast.
Sonia: Thanks Sal. Look forward to speaking soon.
Sally: Sonia Henry. What a woman hey!? And I'd like to take this opportunity to say how incredibly proud I am of Sonia. I mean, not just getting through medicine and writing the incredible book, but she is the best friend - always there with a bottle of wine to debrief any of life's problems. And we all know how important those people are in our lives. Right? I don't want this to come across like a whinge because I do think society's changing, however, I still feel we're quicker and more enthusiastically ready to celebrate engagements and weddings and baby showers than we are to celebrate things that take actual skill, dare I say. You know, so let me take this opportunity to give a big shout out to all the people, especially the women out there building businesses, writing books, killing it at their career. You're awesome. And in my opinion, these achievements need to be celebrated as much as any of the social milestones. I have so many incredible clients and I always tell them how incredible and amazing they are and they're shocked to hear it. I know we're not the best at taking compliments, but I also think we're not the best at giving compliments. So if you know someone out there doing something amazing, tell them! It just might be the thing they need to hear, to put a smile on their face or to give them the confidence to keep going. And if you're one of those women and you're having a bad day, then just give me a call. It's a hidden service. It's like a dial-a-compliment. You ring me up and I will just shower you in all the amazing stuff that you need to hear and that you should be hearing more often.
Now my next item on the agenda is to apologize for the less than ideal audio quality on that episode. I'm still trying to work out the best system to do interviews, but don't worry, I will have it sorted out for you by season two. The other thing I've got sorted out is my website. Can you believe it's finally up? So if you head to www.sallyprosser.com.au you won't just get an under construction page. You will get a whole bunch of information about who I am and what I do. Also if you had to www.thatvoicepodcast.com it will take you straight to all of the past episodes and because you're one of my favorite people listening to this podcast, I was hoping you could help me out. If you're on the website and you notice a broken link or a typo or anything else that just looks a bit weird, please let me know because I've built it myself and there are bound to be mistakes. So just let me know and I'll do my best to fix them for you.
So next week is the final episode of season one of that voice podcast, which is very exciting. I've really enjoyed making this season. I really hope you've enjoyed it too. Because it's getting up so close to Christmas I thought I'd share a couple of tips for how you can look after your voice amid all the drinking and the eating and the belting out of Mariah Carey - All I want for Christmas is you, because you know, during this time, even though we want to have a great time and you know I'm not a wowser I mean it's hard to find a picture of me on social media without a wine in my hand. But in saying that, we do want to look after our voices so they're there for us, not just so we can have great conversations with all our friends and family, but so we can head into the new year feeling good, feeling strong, and feeling in full voice. I hope to see you next week.
Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. For more information, head to the podcast page, www.thatvoicepodcast.com.