Dr. Eric Griggs almost gave up on medicine. After graduating from Tulane medical school in 1996, and starting his residency in community medicine, Griggs found that health care was changing — he didn’t like it.
“We used to have a half hour to an hour with some patients,” Griggs said. “Now, it's evolved to six to seven minutes per patient on average.”
He was so disenchanted that he considered going to law school and even studied for the LSAT. Then, he got a call from a friend to be on a radio segment.
He went, and a woman called in to ask him a question about blood pressure.
Griggs answered.
“After speaking to that lady on the radio, it kind of stuck,” Griggs said. “It spiraled into career.”
Griggs, now known in the community as ‘Doc Griggs,’ is the director of community medicine at Access Health Louisiana in New Orleans. Griggs has a segment on WVUE FOX 8 New Orleans’ Morning Edition, a radio show on WBOK 1230AM and a social media platform where he answers community questions as often as he can.
Animated versions of Dr. MarkAlain Dery (left) and Dr. Eric 'Doc' Griggs (right) as they explain complicated health topics simply.
He also works closely with STEM NOLA, a program launched in 2013 to promote STEM studies and career paths to students in New Orleans.
During the pandemic, Griggs and Dr. MarkAlain Dery worked on dismantling false news and educating the public on the coronavirus using animations on their website NoiseFilter.
Griggs is also the vice chairman for The 100 Black Men of Metro New Orleans, a national and international organization that works to create environments for education and economic advancements for minorities.
Griggs even wrote children’s book, “I Said, I’m Gonna Be a Doctor … ,” based on his own journey to becoming a doctor and community health specialist. The story follows Jamiale and his canine companion, Poppy.
In addition to being appointed as an assistant professor at the LSU School of Medicine, Griggs is an adjunct professor for the Xavier University College of Pharmacy and advises students in a mentor role.
How do you communicate medical knowledge with the community?
It’s about staying in constant communication the entire time — the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly.
We have to explain that science is an ugly process. It's not pretty. Medicine is an art. It's something that is constantly changing.
You have to allow for things to change as you find out information, and you can't do that unless there are open and constant lines of communication.
The moment you shut down or slow down communication is when distrust begins. It's a matter of mutual respect. My experience is that what you give the community, they'll give back 1,000-fold.
Dr. Eric 'Doc' Griggs
Talking to the community in large, confusing and sometimes intimidating terms, without listening to the community is disrespectful. In health care, typically, the pattern has been that 100% of the time we know what the community needs, but less than 50% of the time do we listen to what the community wants.
A lot of times we forget that we go to school, we get these big degrees, but then, as a consequence of the education — a positive consequence — we end up moving away from the same community that we are trying to help. We become so out of touch that even the recommendations aren't practical.
It is all about connection and being honest, and not putting yourself behind the wall.
My claim to fame is: “I don’t know.”
That's the thing about health care — if you can admit the defects in your own knowledge, in science, you can build public trust, as opposed to trying to trying to explain around it with jargon.
Where are you getting ideas for your stories and topics on the podcast?
If I'm sitting outside at a grocery store, people will randomly bring up questions to me. A lot of times my inspiration is what people think don't about: “Why is it that when I walk into the room, I forget my keys?,” or “I’ve gotten a lot of mosquito bites lately Doc, why do I get bitten when my brother doesn't?”
I'm doing this, truly, to help people. I'm just the messenger, and they want the message, and they want it in a way that's palatable for them. Most importantly, I don't want to be a talking head.
I try to be involved in the community: speaking, doing community events, being on the committees, being on the board — you name it.
How do you find the answers?
I tell people my superpower is that I have super friends. I don't see patients, but all my friends do.
I go to them, and I go to Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Harvard sources — traditional institutions. The difference is that I can go all the way to the ‘white paper,’ the nerdy stuff. I can find those things and break it down, make analogies and metaphors as though I'm talking to someone that has never seen this before.
There's a sense of social responsibility with your words, and I want to feel like I've done the best that I could to not make people more confused than when I started.
The one thing that I also do is try to dispel any of the myths on social media — I'm still working on it.
What’s next?
I finished my certification as a specialist in artificial intelligence and health care. I took a Stanford course. I have always been a math nerd, and I realized that the whole concept of AI is data mining and graphs. It's all math.
I'm working on four other certifications as well because AI is here. And it's here to stay. It's going to be the future of medicine.
We’re going to need somebody to explain it and to demystify it. I don't want to be a programmer, but I want to be able to be on both sides of the line to help educate the community so they're not afraid of it.
I also want to educate my fellow members of the health care community that are afraid of it.