January 02, 2026

Storytelling is a Cheat Code

57 minutes

This week we dig in to:

• storytelling as a tool for health communication,

• strategies for delivering information & building health literacy in entertaining ways,

• why the human brain prefers stories over logic, and

• the power of narrative to educate, engage, and empower patients.

Guest Messenger
Tim Jones, co-founder and CEO of Health Nuts Media

Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:00 Tim's (Emmy-Award Winning) Origin Story
4:00 Talking to Teens About Cancer & Chemotherapy
5:40 Dropping Names & Saving Lives
6:59 Addressing Health Literacy & Underserved Populations
9:23 Storytelling is a Cheat Code
10:34 The Human Brain is a Story Processor, Not a Logic Processor
12:23 Curling Up on the Couch With a Good Spreadsheet?
13:00 Empathy Machines...
14:05 …vs. Data Machines
16:29 The Power of Metaphor
18:45 We All Want Closure
19:29 Why So Serious?
21:34 Graduating at 70% Effectiveness
22:46 The Real Danger of the Algorithms
25:15 Optimizing the Health Care Communication Ecosystem
26:50 Preparing for Those Precious 8 Minutes
28:37 Wheel of Fortune & Taking Some of the Burden Off
33:33 Animation & The Elimination of Bias
34:39 Family Guy & The Best COVID-19 Vaccine Explainer Ever
36:54 Health Nuts Clip: "50 Things You Might See in the Hospital"
39:45 Health Nuts Clip: "NPO Instructions"
43:53 Communicating to People Where They Are
46:04 Talk to Me About Hospice When You’re Shoveling Dirt on My Coffin
48:15 David Byrne, Lyrical Tricks, and Opening the Door for Patients
50:07 Our Job is Not to be Encyclopedic
50:52 Everything is Tuberculosis
52:35 The Idea of Narrative Medicine
54:50 Educator Shout-Out: Professor Michael Mott
55:49 Mystery, Not Muddle

Show Links
Family Guy COVID 19 Video Explainer