Keep 'Em Happy: Customer Experience with Wayne Paradis

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine. Today I have with me a dear friend and colleague from my workplace, which I will not name, except to say that we both are at the same Augusta Waterville area Health System. And this is our patient experience coordinator, Wayne Paradis. Thanks for joining me today.

Wayne Paradis: It's absolutely my pleasure to be here, Lisa.

Lisa Belisle: You and I actually share something that I think almost immediately when I joined Maine General, I could tell we were gonna be in sync about, and that is the importance of making the patient experience a good one. Because healthcare these days already is stressful 'cause people come in to see us and they're upset, or they're in pain or they have questions and uncertainty. So right outta the gate, it's a very difficult thing to be in healthcare, but there are ways that we can make it more or less uncertain, more or less scary. And I have always thought that really should be a big part of my job. And that is essentially the entirety of your job.

Wayne Paradis: It is.

Lisa Belisle: So tell me about your job and how you got to be a patient experience coordinator.

Wayne Paradis: Well, Lisa, I had a very circuitous route to the role I hold today at our workplace. I began way back as a stay-at-home parent, believe it or not, the only guy in a field that was largely female. And it was through that work that I learned quickly how to socialize with just about anyone. When I came back to the workplace at the place we work now, I meandered through different roles, starting in prevention. Then I worked as a health coach for the organization. And something interesting happened right at the beginning of the pandemic. Many staff where we work were redeployed, and I was redeployed to our cancer center. In that capacity, a much different role, screening people for COVID. And it was through that process that I watched people at their worst days of their lives come alive as a result of how I interacted with them, to the point where they made me a badge that said Prince Charming.

And while that might sound a little silly, it was a badge of honor that I carried very closely. As it turns out, what was happening there at the entrance of that facility essentially was shaping each individual patient's experience. And it was noticed by others around me that this guy's got a knack for turning the mundane into something that's pleasurable for other people. One thing led to another, an opportunity opened up where we work, and I was gratefully chosen to carry on this important work for our organization. That is the ideology of how I became where I am now. And frankly, I love coming to work every day because I know individually we can make differences simply by being present with people and doing those small things that don't tell the patient, what's the matter with you? But rather, what matters to you.

Lisa Belisle: I think I first met you when you were still doing prevention and you came in. So our organization has a two day orientation, and we call the first day day one, not a super creative name, but I'm not criticizing it, it is day one. And you came in and you were talking about wellness with a group of people that you'd never met before, kind of a disparate mishmash. We had some administrators, we had some doctors, we had some front office staff, housekeeping, and you're like, I'm gonna get everybody excited about healthy living and prevention, and wearing our Fitbits and wearing our sneakers, and what can we do for you to make your life better? And I could tell that day that you had this background in health coaching. You're like, I'm gonna try to get this group excited. I don't know them, they don't know me, but I'm gonna try to get this group excited. Why did you go into the area of health coaching that you started with, where I first intersected with you?

Wayne Paradis: I was always fascinated by behavior change and other models for behavior change, whether it's the trans-theoretical model, motivational interviewing. I really enjoyed psychology and social sciences. And what health coaching did is it put me in a place to draw into what was, I'd like to think, innate as far as where my strengths lie. And amusingly, this translates very closely into my current position. With patient experience, it's leveraging behavior to create sweeping change, or continued process improvement changes with our entire staff, to affect a change that builds loyalty at our hospital. People don't always remember much about their appointment. They remember how they felt, they remember how folks interacted with them. This drives loyalty oftentimes as much as the clinical outcomes that they potentially get down the road.

Lisa Belisle: So did you major in psychology as an undergraduate, or did you have any sort of academic background?

Wayne Paradis: Sociology. And that can go a lot of ways vocationally, but I was drawn to cognitive behavioral work and aspects of behavior. That background drew me to this type of work. And my predecessor, he saw that in me, and he said, you ought to apply for this when I retire. And it was an absolute honor to be esteemed as highly as that, to step into someone's shoes that had done things so well and paved the way. So here I sit continuing to evolve with everything that I've learned and everything I continue to learn, in the name of what will keep our patients coming back, but not just because it's a game, but because this is really what people need.

Lisa Belisle: And that understanding of people and that background in sociology, I think is so much more necessary than sometimes we think. And actually our new slash current CEO from the healthcare system we work with, this person's background was actually in sociology. That was his undergraduate major at a small liberal arts college, and then went on to get a business degree. But I just think that's so interesting that that was where that person's mind went initially, because understanding where people are coming from, either scientifically or just behaviorally or interpersonally, it makes such a huge difference as to how much you can affect change.

Wayne Paradis: It absolutely does. And for so many people, no matter what it is, whether it's your mechanic, the dentist, if someone gets the sense that the relationship is transactional in nature, really think about that. They want my money. This is just in and out. Nothing personal about the experience. I want to go someplace where someone knows who I am, uses my preferred name, remembers things about what I shared with them the last time. These are quote unquote soft skills. These are critical skills. These are skills that keep any organization healthy. Starbucks, you name it. If they do these things better, they're gonna gain more market share. Coffee's the same pretty much everywhere. I'll admit off the record, since no one's watching this, that I'm a coffee snob, so I have my preference. But with that said, coffee's coffee, groceries are groceries. People go to certain places because of their experience there, their loyalty. That's what we drive every day with every interaction we have with every individual person.

Lisa Belisle: One of the reasons I wanted to have you come in and talk with me on this show is because I had watched a grand rounds that you gave, and it was about communication, which of course we're talking on a show. So it's about communication, right? For me, this is extremely dear to my heart. And I've heard people say, well, what difference does it make? They're just words. It's just semantics. And I'm like, I do not believe in that at all. I think words are everything, and how they're delivered is everything. So when you were giving this grand rounds that was so focal to the message that you were sharing, did somebody ask you to give that grand rounds about communication and patient experience? Or was this something that you came up with on your own?

Wayne Paradis: It's something I came up with on my own, because what underpins most dissatisfaction in any experience is a lack of communication. People mean well, but that doesn't mean the words that folks use are gonna align with their meaning. Many studies show that our words are just a small part of our communication. Our body language is the biggest part. Our tone. I could say something that sounds creepy and then the next sentence say the same thing, and it sounds welcoming. How are you? How are you? Right? There's two different things, same words. And we have to be absolutely cognizant of the tone we use, our word choice, how we apologize, how we do service recovery. If we do these things in a way that blames someone else or puts them on the defensive, we are swimming upstream at that point.

So it's absolutely crucial to challenge our teams to look at how individually they communicate with our customers, to ensure that people are spreading the word about this. There's an expression: when you're good, you tell people; when you're great, people tell you. I use this analogy a lot. We all know that singer who says they're a good singer, and you know, well, I'm sure you are, right? But if we hear that from somebody else, all of a sudden they're a good singer. And any hospital, any restaurant, any ice cream shop, when it's great, people tell other people about it. And we wanna be who people talk about, for all of the reasons mentioned before.

Lisa Belisle: It's been difficult during COVID to try to get back to a place of mutual kindness within healthcare. Everybody right now is still feeling a little less resilient than usual, a little more tired. We're still working through things that happened maybe with our kids or our parents, and the adjustments we had to make. It's getting better over time. But oftentimes, because again, we are the interface where somebody comes in to see us when they're feeling their worst, in healthcare it makes it really hard, because you and I never stopped working. We were there through the whole pandemic. We were not taking time to walk in the woods or somehow replenish our souls. I'm not sure that anybody else truly was either in COVID, just to be clear. But how do you help people on both sides who are already feeling a little sensitive, a little tired, a little less resilient? How do you help them understand one another and come to a place where you can say, listen, I got you. You are not in your best place, but let's try to work together on this.

Wayne Paradis: Well, related to my role specifically, I have the good fortune of bolstering our staff with positive feedback from our patients every day. One of the joys in my work is to find something very personal that I can share directly with our medical staff. Heck, our nurses, our janitorial staff, it's irrelevant who it's about. If it's personal, it has detail. I want them to know what they did to touch somebody else, versus the vague feedback of, they did great. That's nice, but I want the details that, A, reinforce the behavior, and B, bring a huge smile to someone's face to know that what they do matters. There are things they do that can fill their own cup. On the patient side, I hear a lot of things that we could do better.

It is one of the joys of my work also to talk with these folks, to learn what we could do better, and to validate where we could improve, and to restore their faith that their voice matters. And ideally earn their loyalty back, not with words, but with our proposed actions for the future. So it's really both sides I get interacting with, both segments of those who interact through the patient experience. That's where the groundwork happens, and where I come alive as an employee.

Lisa Belisle: Because you and I work closely together on multiple service lines, I get to be the recipient of your emails that detail out patient experiences across the board. There's one favorite email that is maybe a monthly email that starts with all of the patient comments that are essentially like a level zero. These are the worst things that have come across our desk. And thank goodness we get to the end of the spreadsheet and we get all the, I don't know what it is, level five or whatever the highest level is, and there's some great comments. But wow, it is so hard to read through all of the comments, because people do have a broad range of experiences, and not just our health system, every health system. So how do you help people accept possibly the negativity of the comments, but also learn from them?

Wayne Paradis: Great question. Stepping back, patient experience on the whole really comes down to one word. It's not whether we provide great care, it's the patient's perception that we provide great care. We're gonna provide great care, but if the patient thinks we are doing other things, they could rake us over the coals for that. And that's their right. So it's an opportunity, number one. It's really a conundrum in a way. In the past I used to put only the top ones on there, and then I'd put the nasty grams at the bottom. And what we found is that people ran outta time. It's a lot of feedback. And people didn't read those. And yet, where's our opportunity? Where's our service recovery opportunity? Where's our fact checking?

There was so much to learn from that. Sometimes it's entertaining. There are a variety of, I mean, you said, I really like this comment, which I very much appreciate, that these things are looked at and considered. It's not just that monthly email that comes in. Ideally it's delivered in a way that invites our leadership to look at it, versus, oh yeah, that patient experience stuff. What is there for me here? What's highlighted that I can really learn from? And how do we grow as an organization from this? And anybody watching this, like all feedback, you may wonder, you get that survey call and is anybody gonna do anything about this? We look at every piece of feedback. We challenge change in order to make experiences better for everyone after that point. So the comments that you receive, yes, that is a batch. We take the learning nuggets from that batch for our change, and frankly, we take the positive feedbacks and we glorify the great things that we do too, because the lion's share of our feedback is incredible. There's nothing I like more than to validate that work as soon as it comes into me.

Lisa Belisle: There are a range of comments. You have to take them where they're coming from. One was the ice didn't taste as good at this institution as in other places that I've been to, or maybe McDonald's. I don't remember exactly what the comparison was. And I was like, oh, I wonder what I could learn from this. Maybe there was something bad going on with the ice in that machine that day.

Wayne Paradis: Did you go down to the ice machine and give it a try, or what?

Lisa Belisle: I mean, actually, I regularly have water with ice in it from our cafeteria and our coffee shop, and I've actually never had a bad batch. But that doesn't mean that this person didn't have a bad batch at some point from one of the nursing units. I don't really know. But it is always interesting too that you actually have to be open to getting all the feedback and saying, all right, well maybe there's nothing we can really do about the taste of the ice, 'cause maybe it's just related to the taste of the water, and maybe they're on chemotherapy medicines that cause their taste to be off. But always being like, okay, what do we learn from this? What can we change? What can't we change? What do we just have to accept? There's a lot of different directions you could go in. You could really be chasing down some of these comments. That could be your whole job all the time, which I guess is sort of your job, right? All the time.

Wayne Paradis: It is. And you're right, do we pursue the ice? Do we have the equivalent of a blind taste test of all the ice on the floors? You know what I mean? That's probably not a level we're gonna go to. But perception matters, perception's reality. We know that experience can be marred by one small thing across the entire continuum of their care. It's everyone, and also everything people encounter. We can be dazzling and charismatic and remember names, children's names, how their child's travel soccer league went. But if the ice wasn't great, we may get a marginal review from that patient. So it's critical that we don't necessarily poo that, but we really look into it. What could we do to change this? Much of that feedback drives our change too. We look at that stuff. It matters to me. It matters to my leadership. And it will continue to matter.

Lisa Belisle: And I think, maybe this is actually an important thing for people to know. When you send these forward to me, the other chief medical officers and I, we actually read this, and we read the daily risk report with all of the issues that come through that are potentially a little hazardous to patient health. We read the patient advocacy report that comes through with all of the comments from patients who are concerned that their care wasn't at a level that they wanted. We read the patient experience comments. So if anybody's thinking that this is going into a void, I can't speak for any other person in our organization or anywhere else, but I personally am reading these comments, and I think a lot of senior leadership does take these things very seriously.

Wayne Paradis: Agreed. And what you say is a hundred percent true. That's why, where I work, I believe that we have a world class leadership looking at the voices of our patients for continuous improvement. Experience, more and more, whether it's liked or not, it drives future loyalty, no matter the business. And more and more emphasis. There are even things like reimbursement attached to patient experience. When we do this well, where do you wanna send your loved one? A place where staff don't listen well, where there are lots of falls? Of course not. So savvy consumers can look up this information, and if they have a choice, they can send their loved one to hospital B if hospital A is something they perceive to be not the ideal healthcare experience for their loved one. So it really does matter. We measure lots of things. We want to be seen as the best. And it's something that I go to work every day ensuring that we do, to the limits of my abilities for sure, which I still haven't found, by the way.

Lisa Belisle: I'm wondering if you have had the same experience I've had, which is that as I've worked with people that maybe finished their education, or even started and finished their education, during COVID, that because the lack of interaction with humans other than audio visually was their experience of education, that when they actually reemerged into the workplace as perhaps young professionals, they had to almost get re-skilled in how to be a human and engage in human conversations. And I'm not even just saying the younger people. I'm saying maybe there's a group of people that, as a result of being not with other humans for three years, reemerged into the world and didn't know how to play in the sandbox well. Have you seen that in any way?

Wayne Paradis: You know, in many ways the pandemic became a loneliness pandemic for a lot of folks. Sure, our youngsters, but even those who were isolated at home. And we're cognizant of that even from a training perspective. All our new staff receive patient experience training now, so that way the person checking in isn't feeling awkward about it. They know the best practices that reduce anxiety for those coming into the building. Those coming into the building may be in that post pandemic, coming out of that loneliness place. We'd much rather express anger than to admit that we're hurt or afraid. These are just human conditions. And loneliness is something too that in a way could carry shame, right? So in order to alleviate a lot of that, we train our staff on how to essentially engage with someone in a way that reduces anxiety right from the get-go. And it's really not, quote unquote, rocket science. It's a warm smile, it's eye contact, it's using someone's name. Someone knows right away if you're happy to see them, or more bluntly, who the most important person is in the room. So it's critical that we set the stage appropriately.

Lisa Belisle: Well, one of the most enjoyable things that I do with medical staff, and not necessarily medical staff that are in any way, let's say, remedial, or in a place of growth, we'll say, one of the things that I enjoy doing is actually shadow rounding or sitting in on visits that people will have in the outpatient setting or in the hospital, and actually watching how the interactions go, because it's very informative. We don't really know. You can say, oh, so-and-so is a great doctor, physician assistant, nurse. But unless you're actually in there with that patient, it's really hard to know how that back and forth goes. So for me, I find it just fascinating and very helpful sometimes. Do you do that kind of shadow rounding yourself?

Wayne Paradis: Occasionally, yeah, absolutely. It's an initiative that I want to take on moving forward, to have a more consistent, and for those listening, more consistent is still a vague term, but have it be something that is a prioritized aspect of the work. It's one thing to shadow round, it's another thing to see someone who doesn't have a witness, right? You're likely to get someone at their best, which is great, but it's still that opportunity to give feedback to someone, which is a fun thing to do. And there are elements of giving someone that feedback where they hear it, where they will accept it and they'll grow from it. And I think from your shadow rounding, you may come up with the same opportunities where, if someone's resistant to feedback, it gets you into that then-what dynamic.

But like anything, developing relationships with those staff that shadow rounding occurs with, it sets the stage for that authentic feedback. Because at the end of the day, our staff want to grow and they want to be their best. And I think those characteristics alone make those staff open to feedback. I welcome all shadowing opportunities, mentoring, facilitation, you name it. Anything that will make our patients in general more pleased about their time. Bring it on.

Lisa Belisle: Yeah. And I feel the same way. And also, I went to shadow in the emergency room recently, because that's one of the service lines that I work with. And the person, I think, was so concerned that I must be doing this because this person had done something wrong, that literally the person couldn't make eye contact with me for the first 10 minutes. They just worked on the computer and didn't really say anything, didn't really talk to me. And I was like, I just wanna be really clear here. I'm just trying to learn. I'm not here to give you advice. I just wanna know what is it like to be a practitioner in the emergency room? And I think allowing that person to understand that, look, you're the expert here. I'm not trying to be intimidating, but I think it is sometimes intimidating. Of course it is. Obviously, if you have somebody who's one of the chief medical officers come in and is following you around, you're thinking, oh, is my job at risk? But how do we create that place of comfort where we say, look, we're a learning organization. We just wanna learn from what you are doing in your work. How do we do that?

Wayne Paradis: I think what's been helpful, at least for me, when I go out with charge nurses or nurse managers who are new to their roles, their leadership is very much pushing it as an opportunity to get this right. What I found in my rounding with some super clinical staff who might not have the same background as I do, is it's very much like, how are we doing? Are we responsive? Anyone you wanna recognize? And my example is a little exaggerated for purpose. Whereas my approach is, what would you be doing if you weren't in the hospital today? And what did you do for a career? Tell me more about that. What town do you live in? Patient opens up. Next time I go in the room, I have instant small talk.

They are happy to see me. Does it have anything to do with their clinical care? I contend that if someone has easy things to talk about with that care team, that their stay is better. And frankly, it's better for our staff too, who go in the room and they know that patient by name. They know the patient's spouse or the plus one by name, and they know things about their life that they might be missing out on because they're here. And it adds to the overall compassion from our end. And it bolsters the relationship. So getting back to that question, it's the support of that top down leadership that says this is going to happen, but here's why. And here's not why. It's not to monitor you and talk about what you're not doing well. It's to build your skills to embody those patient experience traits that align with what our customers want.

Lisa Belisle: So one of the things that people have noticed about notes that I write, and this is getting to your point about knowing patients, is in the notes, even though there's absolutely no reason in our current electronic health record to make these sort of comments, I will say, this person enjoys going to Harley Davidson rallies. This person has three great-grandchildren that she cares for every Tuesday. And actually try to round out people's lives. Because I think you're absolutely right that if people feel known, whether it's a staff person or whether it's a patient, they feel like you really care about them, which actually I really come to care about the people that I interact with. There's usually a chance for connection that can be so much deeper than, let me just look at your white blood cell count with you, and look at what these numbers are telling me about your body. It's more like, Wayne, I know that you play classical guitar, so tell me about that, which I'm gonna actually ask you that question in a minute. So how do we create enough space in an interaction to ask questions like this? How do we encourage people to do that? Because it doesn't have to be a 25 minute conversation. How do we encourage that?

Wayne Paradis: Well, so much of it, and it's what you do so well, it's the body language that shows the person you're with that you're really interested in what they have to say. And it's those traits, it's the appropriate eye contact, it's the body leaning in, paraphrasing where appropriate, asking probing questions. All of those things work toward getting to a place with anyone that you're earning the right to hear their story. If you think about people in our lives that we've earned the right to hear their story or not, we don't just give that away for nothing. And in that relationship that you're speaking about, someone wants to give their story away, but you've gotta earn it in a way. And you're gonna earn that a lot more, and you're gonna enjoy your work a lot more, when you know you've earned that right.

And what you do, and what most of our medical staff do that I interact with, they strive to do this too. And it's part of their training. When medical staff onboard at our organization, they receive personalized, and by personalized I mean tailored to their service line, training, not just so they can do well in their surveys, but so that folks understand what matters to our patients more than anything, based on hundreds of thousands of notes and comments from them about their experiences, continuing to morph what's important to them as our times roll on. So it's that body language piece. So much matters. I ran into a colleague the other day and I was so happy to see them in the cafeteria, and within five seconds they pulled their phone out and they were half listening, and they were teaching me right away, even though I didn't say it out loud, that I was more excited to see them than they were me.

This wasn't where we work, it was somewhere else, of course. And the next time I passed them, I said, hey, how you doing? But I did not stop. And so we're constantly teaching people how to treat us. And for analogy's sake, we do the same thing with the people we're caring for. If we give folks a signal that we have better things to do, or that they aren't as important to us as we are to them, they will act on that, and they will create perceptions that are very difficult to change. So it's critical that we do all of these things in addition to providing great care.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I think you're right. And I do think body language says a lot. And of course, in our field, we're asked to gather a lot of data, which means a lot of times there's a computer and a screen that's in between the person that we're talking to and us. And being aware, you can turn the screen, you could actually look at the screen together. This is you, Mr. Jones, as the patient, let's look at these numbers, so that we're interacting with each other and with the screen. Let's make sure we're always at the same level. So I don't come in and stand and tower above Mrs. Smith, because I don't have that much time. You come in and you sit down, and you take a minute. 'Cause it doesn't even take a minute. You're doing these small things. You're absolutely right that it's the body language, it's the questions that you ask that show that you care that they work at a metal foundry. It's all of those things that come together. And yet I think it can be challenging, 'cause people are like, we don't have time. I gotta go look at my phone. I gotta get this data entered into the computer. And it's helping people understand it doesn't take that much time. It's not that different than what you're actually already doing. You're just modifying a position, or an eye contact, or a word that comes outta your mouth. It's not that time consuming.

Wayne Paradis: Every person in a way is like a present, like a gift. Who is this person in front of me? What matters to them? How can I take an interest in them that makes their healthcare experience a little more unique, rather than that T word again, transactional. Transactional experience is the opposite of patient experience. And we do everything we can to not create that ever. That's when outward migration happens, to other places, right? I know that I'll go somewhere 'cause something's on sale. That's a real life example. And the same thing about healthcare. If I think the service is better somewhere else, I am going to defect. I am gone. It doesn't take much. So it's absolutely critical, all that you mentioned.

Lisa Belisle: One of the reasons that I have chosen to work with our health system is because I was almost born in Maine. You and I had this conversation. You and I are both not born in Maine, but really have lived in Maine most of our lives. It was sort of an accident of our birth, 'cause our family.

Wayne Paradis: Everyone in my life is from Maine, and I'm okay with that.

Lisa Belisle: Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. But I think we share that sense of just deep, deep connections to where we live, to our communities, to the people that we've lived with for many years. And I think that the place that we work at, there's people who have worked there 35, 40 years. I think there's a four generation family that I'm aware of. And I think that, at the end of the day, is so critical to why we do the work we do and why we work where we do. We're taking care of our people, right? So instead of thinking about them as them, them as patients, it's us. And if we help all of us be healthier, then we're all gonna be healthier as a community and as a state. So that's my own personal feeling, but I invite you to have thoughts on the matter. Maybe they differ, maybe they don't.

Wayne Paradis: One thing I know as I listen to that, Lisa, is having you work there in your role cements the fact that these things will continue to matter where we work. That is huge. I can come to work every month and I pass that comment out, and I know I'm gonna get something from you that validates not only the work I do, I mean, who doesn't like validation, right? Show me somebody who doesn't. But it also validates the great things we do on the whole where we are. It's probably not unique to healthcare systems. It's just what I'm passionate about. And I believe that we provide world class experience in addition to world class care, cemented by our leadership group and the people they choose to hire that embody those traits that drive loyalty to us.

Lisa Belisle: And do you think that this is related to being in Maine in any way? Or do you think that this exists in some form in a lot of places?

Wayne Paradis: Well, I hope my accent hasn't been too nutso, which I say with a wink and a smile. But I think there's an element of relating to people who are from Maine, and training our staff to know that most folks in Maine don't want to be called sir necessarily. They'd prefer to have their first name used. We have staff start from other states. They call everyone Mrs. so-and-so, and you might not like that if you're born in Maine. Most folks just want their name used. So there are idiosyncrasies that come with working in Maine, and I think staff here know, because we live here and we never wanna leave Maine.

Lisa Belisle: I wanna make sure that I ask you this question, because when I asked you to be on Radio Maine, you said, but this is a group of people that are creative, and I'm not an artist.

Wayne Paradis: My emails are very creative, but that's a long conversation for another day.

Lisa Belisle: I mean, at your core, I know that you are a very creative individual, whether you're doing it with a paintbrush or whether you're doing it with words and interactions. I think there is creativity at its core. However, the thing that I wanna make sure to ask you about is your classical guitar, because I think that that is an art form that many people might be surprised to know that you engage in.

Wayne Paradis: Oh, absolutely. Other than my family, who's probably a little fatigued with me taking over the living room for an hour every day. When the pandemic started, I dabbled more closely with classical guitar, because, well, really guitar, I played it as a youth thinking it would make me cool. And at the end of the day, there's more that went into that than just my ability to hit a G chord. I always liked finger picking more so than strumming. And at the beginning of the pandemic, I bought a classical guitar, which is much different than a regular guitar. For those who aren't familiar with the differences, the neck is much wider, which means much larger spans with fingers, the strings are nylon, a different tone, held differently.

So much fun. So it was through the pandemic that my interest and ability exploded, and I continue to enjoy and build. And while I don't have a gig every weekend at posh established establishments other than my living room, I am known to play in the cafeteria at the hospital where we work. And I welcome anyone listening to contact me for a very fancy schmancy audition, keeping in mind that my style is baroque, romantic, very technical, lot of fun. I fall in love with the dissonance that chords and note combinations create, and it makes me come alive learning a new piece. It's like meeting a new person at the hospital. I wanna know about them. It's that honeymoon period that I have with every piece, and then it goes in my repertoire. I would say there are roughly 300 pieces in my repertoire at this point. Very few memorized though. So that's the next goal.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I wanna make sure that I end this conversation by giving a shout out to your mother, because I've now heard from you at least twice that your mother will be watching this. And as I know, my mother, Mary, she and my father Charlie, they actually watch this every week and they give me feedback. So I hope that your mother, Wayne, will be watching this and will give you, I guess, whatever honest feedback she is wont to give you.

Wayne Paradis: She has blinders on. Yeah, she'll love it no matter what. And if you have 50,000 views, please know that 49,000 may be her. I just want to throw that out there. She's a lovely woman, very proud of her. Happy to have her in my life still. I mean, by no means am I an old man, but I never take advantage of just understanding the opportunity of having the elder generation still in my life.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I agree with you absolutely. And I'm not sure that any of my children at this point have actually watched any of these episodes of this show. This is nothing against any of my children. You're all wonderful. I love you in case you are watching this. But I do love the fact that my parents, and clearly your mother, are interested in supporting us in our ongoing professional trajectories. So I think that that is another similarity that we share.

Wayne Paradis: Yeah. Thank you, Lisa. And when you first asked me to come on here, I thought, oh gosh, no, that's in front of other people. But then I was like, wait a minute here. This is such an opportunity to showcase what we do, where we work, but to expose content that is truly magical in the eyes of everyone we serve. This is that exposure, no matter the bandwidth that this reaches. People will watch this. People will be curious. People may reach out to me as a result, and I hope they do, because I want to hear from folks, not just for gigs. I do welcome that, for anyone interested in some Beethoven or Bach. But with that said, around patient experience, talk to me. I want to help everybody look at how they can be even better, to foster loyalty no matter what it is you're looking to achieve in life.

Lisa Belisle: Well, you heard it here. If you happen to have a Bach or a Beethoven or baroque classical guitar gig that you need to have taken care of for you in the greater Wiscasset area, you can reach out to Wayne Paradis. And or if you're interested in having Wayne have a conversation with you, or maybe even present on patient experience, I heard his grand rounds, it's really actually pretty great. It has been really a great pleasure for me to be here today on Radio Maine. I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and I've been speaking with Wayne Paradis, who is the patient experience coordinator extraordinaire in our health system. It's been my pleasure, and thank you so much.

Wayne Paradis: Thank you. And I will not share any royalties from the guitar gigs with you, I'm just saying.

Lisa Belisle: Okay. It's good to have.

Wayne Paradis: Boundaries. It's been my pleasure. Thanks so much, Lisa.

Lisa Belisle: All right. Thanks Wayne.