The Concierge Doc Podcast with Dr. Jason Littleton, M.D.
The Concierge Doc Podcast is hosted by Dr Jason Littleton, M.D., where he features medical content to make smart lifestyle choices for optimal health, wellness, energy, youthfulness, longevity, balance, and happiness.
The Concierge Doc Podcast with Dr. Jason Littleton, M.D.
“Leading With Care: Susan Salgado on Culture, Trust & The Future of Concierge Medicine”
In this powerful episode of The Concierge Doc Podcast, Dr. Jason Littleton sits down with Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.— culture strategist and co-architect of Union Square Hospitality Group’s iconic leadership framework — to unpack what it really takes to lead in the high-stakes world of concierge medicine.
From emotional intelligence, to team culture, to delivering luxury-level client experiences, this conversation reveals how lessons from hospitality are reshaping private medicine.
Listen in to discover:
- How leadership drives retention in high-value medical practices
- How to build a luxury brand experience patients can feel
- Why trust and responsiveness are the ultimate differentiators
- Culture strategies used by brands like Shake Shack and USHG
- Actionable tips for doctors evolving into elite health leaders
Perfect for physicians, practice managers, and entrepreneurs building the future of healthcare.
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Disclaimer:
Access to the Information and materials contained in this podcast is at your own risk. The information contained is presented for the purpose of educating the consumer on a variety of wellness and health care topics (the “Information”). Nothing contained is intended to be instructional for medical diagnosis or treatment. The Information contained is compiled from a variety of sources. The Information should not be considered complete and not exhaustive and should not be in place of a visit or consultation with your own primary care doctor.
The views, opinions and statements expressed by our guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Dr Jason Littleton or the Concierge Doc podcast. We do not endorse or take responsibility for any statements, claims or perspectives shared in this content. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and form their own conclusions.
Dr Jason Littleton:Access to the information and materials contained in this podcast is at your own risk. The information contained is presented for the purpose of educating the consumer on a variety of wellness and healthcare topics. The information Nothing contained is intended to be instructional for medical diagnosis or treatment. The information contained is compiled from a variety of sources. The information should not be considered complete and exhaustive and should not be in place of a visit or consultation with your own primary care doctor. Welcome to the Concierge Doc Podcast. I'm your host, ceo and founder of Littleton Concierge Medicine, dr Jason Littleton. Welcome to the podcast.
Dr Jason Littleton:Today we will dive deep into the art of delivering world-class care, exceptional service and a life well-lived. We have with us today a true expert in the world of leadership, workplace culture and customer experience. Today's guest is a keynote speaker, consultant and organizational cultural strategist who has helped leaders across industries, from hospitality to healthcare, build thriving teams and unforgettable client experiences. She spent years working alongside legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer, creating the cultural foundation of some of the most admired service brands in the world, including Union Square Hospitality Group and Shake Shack. Today, she's here to share her insights on how to create a culture that not only inspires your team but also transforms the way your patients and clients feel every time they interact with you. Whether you lead a medical practice, run a business or simply want to elevate your personal leadership, this conversation is full of strategies you can start using immediately. Welcome to the podcast, dr Susan Riley Salgado.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Thank you, Dr Jason. It's so great to be here with you today. I'm so excited because learning about your practice has been really enlightening. I'm so impressed with what you do.
Dr Jason Littleton:Thank you. Thank you. I'm so impressed with what you do and the hospitality world I mean. That is your expertise and we're so excited to talk to you today. I have some awesome questions that I know my audience is going to want to learn from you today, so let's just jump into it. You know, Susan, you're known for transforming workplace culture and customer experience across industries. Can you share the moment or influence that set you on this path?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Sure. So after I graduated from college I stayed at the university. I went to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and I stayed there and worked there for a couple of years and as an employee you can take classes for free but you pay tax on them. It's a benefit. But I thought, well, I should do a master's degree, what I had majored in, and I decided an MBA would be a very practical degree.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So I started out on a course of an MBA program and during my coursework all I felt I was studying were things about technology and inventory and production. It was all very technical and mechanical, nothing about the people. Until finally, my last semester, I took a class on organizational behavior and it was like a light bulb went off for me, because I had always been interested in concepts around how groups of people work together, how diversity impacts groups, how you create strong workplaces where people love to be or, in a university setting, love to learn, and so this course brought all of that together for me and I thought, oh, this is this, is it? This is what I really want to be involved in. And so I kind of had an Elle Woods moment, like I'm going to go get a PhD, and I just applied out.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I really had no right to, I was not prepared for it at all. But I was admitted to NYU and I went to the Stern schools of business, a doctoral program there, and in a business school you're learning organizational psychology and economics and strategy in the context of business, drawing from psychology, sociology and basic economics. And so it's really taking the um, the pure disciplines, and putting them into a business setting, and there I was really able to dive into this concept of organizational culture. So that's what set me off.
Dr Jason Littleton:That's awesome. Yeah, um, that was Elle Wood from Legally Blind. I like that, I think I'll get it. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. And so what was it like? What was like working with Danny Meyer, you know, and shaping the culture of Union Square Hospitality Group and it was absolutely amazing, such a foundational and transformative experience for me.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Danny is a true natural leader. If you've ever seen him talk or like watched him on TV, he is exactly as he comes across. He's so authentic and caring and his leadership is the style of leadership that just makes people want to follow him. And I had noticed his culture as a customer because I was a fan of his restaurants. When my husband and I were dating, we used to go to Union Square Cafe a lot and sit at the bar and I would talk to the servers and the bartenders as they came up to the bar to get their drinks, and I was always fascinated by the way the people who worked there were so passionate about food and wine and they had been there for a long time. These were like five to seven year employees and that's how old the restaurant was, so it was like they were long-term employees, not the transient workers you expect to turn over frequently, and the customer experience was so authentic and so caring and so consistent that I thought, wow, this guy is doing exactly what I'm interested in here.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:My ethos is happy employees lead to happy customers, and I could see that happening in Danny's restaurants, and so I had a chance meeting with him in 1998, when he was opening Tabla, one of his first four restaurants and I went up to him, talked to him, told him about my interest in the culture. Culture in 1998 was not a concept that people talked about, so I'm not sure he knew exactly what he was getting into, but through a series of conversations I was able to persuade him to let me study his restaurants for my dissertation and by the time I was done with my research, I'd fallen in love with the company and I ended up staying there for the next 15 years, first as their director of culture and learning, helping to build the blueprint for the culture so that we could open more businesses and keep the soul of the business alive. But then, after that, we opened a consulting business together called Hospitality Quotient, where I shared those best practices across industries. So we actually started out in healthcare in 2010 and then moved on to everything from concrete companies and auto sales and repairs and trucks, through to luxury retail and some very well-known luxury brands, as well as the hospitality industry itself airlines, hotels, restaurants so really across every industry airlines, hotels, restaurants so really across every industry.
Dr Jason Littleton:That's major. That's major, and I love what you said. Happy employees lead to happy customers. It sounds like culture gives employees purpose. Is that right?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Well, it is if you build purpose in, but the purpose has to come from the leaders of the business itself, because culture is a concept I think is a little misconstrued these days. You know it was. It's an academic concept that has taken on a life of its own in popular press and people associate good culture with the amenities, like you know, nap rooms and beer kegs and ping pong tables, and they think that that's what it takes to create a great culture, when great culture is really about having a shared set of values and beliefs, that we all are striving for the same thing, we're excited about the same things, we're committed to the same things, and so anytime you get a group of people working or living together, a culture will form, and the way it forms is how they treat one another. Wow. So if we treat each other really kindly and respectfully, that's the kind of culture that we're gonna have.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:If it's okay to snap at each other or to be negative or to roll your eyes, then that becomes the culture. Whatever behavior you tolerate is what defines the culture that you have. So even when companies put their values up on the wall and they say, like mutual care and respect and integrity, these are our values. If people are not behaving that way in the organization, then they're just words on the wall. They're not really the culture.
Dr Jason Littleton:Well, that brings up that's. I love what you said. That brings up another question of mine. So how do you correct wrong culture?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Leadership. It's all through leadership, and so what I have learned across industries is that the number one lever that you can pull in culture is the leadership, and not just at the top, but it has to be at the top, it has to be at all levels of the organization. A missed opportunity in most companies is middle management. They don't look at the people who are really running the day-to-day operations as people who are going to be involved in forming or nurturing the culture of the organization, and yet they are the ones who are working on the front lines with the teams who are doing the work, and they're the ones who have to really uphold the culture by ensuring that everyone behaves in a way that's culturally aligned. So if you take this into the world of medicine, if you have a team with medical assistants, nurses, non-clinical staff and physicians and they are not treating each other the way you say you want them to treat one another with the respect, with the caring, with the compassion, if they don't treat each other that way, that is the culture that you have. It will be negative, it will be toxic and the only way it will change is by someone saying we have to hold each other accountable to this culture. Normally that starts at the top. Right, you like set the tone from the top down.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I have worked with organizations where there is a very toxic senior leadership. The executive level is not going to set that example, but I've worked with divisions where, from the division head down, you can get that great culture because you've got the leadership at the top saying no, no, this really is what matters to us, this is what we prioritize, what we value, this is how we're going to behave, and then, when people are held accountable to that, you shift the culture. It sounds like a lot of work but honestly, when you are doing it authentically, it happens naturally. The same way, I'm sure, in a practice like yours, where I've talked to Laura, I've on the phone right Like I know how she is and I'm talking to you, you can tell how people treat one another. And if you've ever had a bad customer experience where you're like this place is really not going well, you can bet that that's part of the culture, that they are just not a good, strong, cohesive team behind the scenes.
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah, no, that's really good. I mean, I just think, you know, in Littleton Concerns Medicine, we just try to be authentic, we don't try to put on airs. And in Littleton Concierge Medicine, we just try to be authentic, we don't try to put on airs and we, you know, I think, just being honest with patients, being yourself, being who you are being comfortable with yourself.
Dr Jason Littleton:I think that you know is illustrated in the doctor-patient relationship and the connections that you make Absolutely. And this leads actually to my next question. You know, obviously in consults, medicine, it's rooted in trust and relationships. How can doctors apply hospitality principles to create a truly exceptional patient experience and journey?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah Well, isn't it funny how hospital is part of the word hospitality.
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah, great yeah. It's funny how hospital is part of the word hospitality.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah great, yeah yeah. And in reality, hospitality is so needed in health care simply for what it is it's taking care of strangers, right, that is what hospitality means. Wow. And when I first started doing this work in health care, I had a fair amount of pushback in some organizations where physicians would say you know, we're not a hotel, this is not the Ritz Carlton, we're not trying to be the Ritz Carlton.
Dr Jason Littleton:I've heard that a lot too.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah, do you. And I mean fair, that's, that's okay. And when people feel like they are so well cared for, they are much more likely to listen to you. They are much more likely to comply with the orders that you give to them. That would improve their health. They will trust you. You build that foundation and that relationship with them, and so we don't have to necessarily roll out red carpets here. What we need to do is genuinely welcome people, make them feel like they belong, make them feel like we care about them, we see them, we hear them. And listening is such an important skill, and everyone knows that, and we all say yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got to listen. Really well, when people say to me what's the one thing that I can do, I say listen. And they say, yeah, I've got that, what's next? No, really listen, because if you're really listening, you're going to know what's next. It's going to be obvious what more you need to do.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I worked with a physician once whose patient experience scores were not so great and he said tell me one thing that I can do. And so, after I had observed him in the hospital setting and I said here's the one thing I want you to do when you are leaving a patient's room. I noticed that you often stand up and ask them what, do you have any other questions? And you're moving towards the door as you're waiting for the answer. I said instead I want you to sit in your seat, ask the question and I want you to count to 10 slowly before you get up and acknowledge that there are no questions. That one move changed his patient experience scores drastically because people were not feeling heard by him. He was in such a hurry all the time and that's a real pain point in medicine. Right, yeah, the world that, not the world that you live in, thank goodness for you. Right, the world of insurance. Medicine is boom, boom, boom.
Dr Jason Littleton:That's what I was going to ask you. That's what I was going to ask you because that sounds like an insurance practice, because they're seeing, you know, 24, 30 patients a day, a patient every 15 minutes, a new patient every 30 minutes. They're on a conveyor belt and you know that must've felt like a pain for that doctor, that you know the count to 10 before you know he left the room or, you know, went on to the next patient because you know he he is constantly feeling like, you know, I don't want to be late for the next patient. I have to be able to compact so much information in a small amount of time, whereas, like in concierge medicine, you know we're spending at least an hour with the patient, we're not stacking patients on top of each other.
Dr Jason Littleton:And when you said that comment about you know, you know we're not a hotel, yeah, that was parallel to like hospital medicine or insurance medicine, but that's not a term that we use. And here in concierge medicine it's certainly not in my practice at Littleton Concierge Medicine, so it's definitely different. But that totally resonates and I used to do insurance medicine and what you said there totally resonates because I know how that could feel and how that doctor probably felt.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Well, it actually is probably a little bit of both, and that personality part is an interesting little add on to this. He was the kind of person who was never going to get all warm and fuzzy and be like oh yeah, I should provide hospitality because I'm in a caring field and I should keep. He was a very practical, no nonsense doctor and it was all about the medicine and not about building the relationship. So he was not drinking my Kool-Aid and what I have found over the years is that people like that, if you give them a strategy that works, they'll do it because it works, Not necessarily because they want to be warm and fuzzy.
Dr Jason Littleton:They do it because it works.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So when I told him that and it worked for him, I think it really shocked him that that kind of a strategy could bring that result. But yes, it is a pain point in insurance medicine that they're on this conveyor belt and I'm seeing it everywhere and the burnout is tremendous and it's not good for the patients.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Right for the patients. The good news is that even a small strategy like this, where you have a sense of abundance in how you're treating people, that you don't make them feel even when you feel rushed, if you can take that breath and say I'm going to give this patient a moment in time and train yourself to do that, it has tremendous impact, because then they're really listening to you, they're going to follow your orders, they're going to do what you take the medicine the way you're saying they should. If they didn't really hear you, they're probably calling back later to ask someone the questions that they didn't ask you, and then they're taking up somebody else's time in the practice. So it's it's a time investment to be able to give them that moment in time.
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah, I love what you said a sense of abundance. To me that means bringing a luxurious experience into the clinic. You know, a seamless, luxurious experience into the clinic. Could you elaborate a little bit more about a sense of abundance?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Absolutely so. One of the things that I learned from Danny Meyer that is true in every industry is that any customer experience is going to have technical and emotional components to it. Danny refers to it as the service meaning all of the technical things of getting the right food to the right person at the right temperature all of that, and then the hospitality being the emotional part, how it feels. And so when I work with companies on customer experience, we break down their customer experience into these two components and talk about the systems that go behind the technical piece, and then how do you make it feel at every touch point, the technical piece. And then how do you make it feel at every touch point? Well, when you have your systems running down really like they're really clicking along, you have more bandwidth for the emotional part, and so the technical is a foundation that you have to build to have good systems that allow you to be technically proficient and get all the work done with high levels of excellence, and you have to be able to make people feel like you genuinely care at each point.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:He refers to the combination of the two as being a swan, because he would say a swan very elegantly like swims across a pond and makes everyone feel this awe and this peacefulness and yet underneath the water it's working like this to make it happen. It's that grace under pressure, never let them see you sweat, and that is a big part of giving someone a sense of abundance that you can contain within yourself, that stress of knowing how much needs to be done while being present with another person. And one of the things I have seen him do that I think is just fascinating is when I would sit down in his office to have a meeting with him. I'd walk in. He'd be like finishing an email or something. He would sit at his desk and he would go and he would like blow it out. And then he turned back to me and be like I'm ready and it's that clear, like you know, clear the all the mess out of your brain.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:A quick meditation.
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah, wow.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah, yeah.
Dr Jason Littleton:I love how you describe that. You know, in one sense, there's a sense where you feel like you almost have to be perfect to perform. But no, I don't think that's true. I think you're, you're, you're a person that's being authentic. But they're well practiced. Systems are well, you know, um flushed out. So so I get that. That makes sense. I think that was a wonderful description. Um, what? What's one small cultural shift that one can make an immediate difference in patient loyalty?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:In patient loyalty. Okay, so here's the thing about culture and patient experience. You have a brand that you're promising to the outside world right and you have a culture that you're living on the inside. If those two things are not the same, you will never get consistency and authenticity in your customer experience. So I had a client call me once. It was a grocery store chain and they had just gone through a big marketing campaign and learned about fonts and colors and taglines and all this stuff that big marketing companies do, and their tagline was we're the friendliest grocery store in town. They called me up and they said we don't know how to do that. Can you please come and help us?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Their culture did not match that brand and when I went there and did some secret shopping, they had the grumpiest employees I'd ever met. It was awful. There was no way these people could provide that kind of care. And the reality was they were being treated like they were dispensable. They were being treated like you don't like stocking shelves, we'll find somebody else to stock shelves. And so if people don't feel valued and appreciated at work, it will never come across as an authentically caring experience for patients. Well, I'm not going to say never, never. Some people have that fortitude to be able to say you can treat me like that, but I'm not treating the patients like that.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:But it's hard, it's a lot more emotional work to be able to provide that genuine care for someone when on the back end you're getting a lot of abuse?
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So I would say the number one thing to focus on is the behaviors that you have behind the scenes. Are you taking care of each other? The behaviors that you have behind the scenes Are you taking care of each other? Is it one team who understands the shared mission of what we're trying to accomplish and feels that sense of purpose that you mentioned, and they are working together collaboratively to be able to deliver on that. Your norms have to match it, your behaviors have to match it and there has to be accountability to it for you to be able to really live out that culture in a way that it is reflective of the brand you're trying to create.
Dr Jason Littleton:That's awesome. That's awesome. I love that, I love that. And the question that you know sounds off in my head is how much is that? How much of that is scouting, looking for the right people, finding someone that aligns with your brand? I mean, you know, sometimes, you know, as a CEO, I feel like like NFL GM, you know, and going through the draft trying to find who fits my team, you know, trying to find the right person. So how much is?
Dr Jason Littleton:that is scouting, or how much is that is? You know? You know, adopted through teaching and methodology. You know, and basically you know, teaching someone your brand.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So I would say that it, it, it's definitely both, and the better you are at scouting, the easier it gets for you. Hire hard, manage easy, Hire easy manage hard.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Love that, however, I believed when I finished my research at Union Square. I believed that Danny Meyer's number one competitive advantage was his hiring, because he could just sniff out this caring gene in people Like. It was easy for him, and so I thought we have to bottle that. And so everyone who was good at hiring in the company, I interviewed them. I created great interview questions and a great plan and strategy for how we're going to do this, and we executed on it and it was good. It was very good, but I don't think our results really changed in terms of the culture. It was just more of the same. We weren't getting worse. We were not getting better.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:In 2009, we had a natural experiment occur where we opened four concessions at Citi Field, where the Mets play, and we had to use employees from a large food service provider who had the contract for the whole stadium. So we couldn't hire our own employees. We had to use the ones who were assigned to us and we got them to agree to allow us to pick from that team who would be assigned to us so we could get those those good players on the team, and to allow us to put one of our managers in each of the four operations On opening day, after we'd done all of the scouting and all of the training and taught them our brand. We did all of that stuff. Opening day comes and the people who were assigned to us we had never seen before the ones that we had scouted were spread out all over the stadium. So somebody didn't get the memo and there was a little bit of panic, but at the end of the day we found that those employees behaved exactly the same as our employees in every other brand of the restaurants. The key was the four managers and that's what I mean by middle management, the people close to the ground who are on the ground in the trenches with the team.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Those four managers created so much enthusiasm and excitement about being part of the brand that they were assigned to.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:They treated people with respect and made them feel part of something bigger probably an experience they'd never had in any other concession at the stadium.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:And those employees behaved exactly the same as our other employees that we had scouted in all of the restaurants. So what it taught us is that leadership really is the key here, and when you focus on building leaders who can create that kind of enthusiasm and at the same time, hold people accountable to a standard. You can be the fun boss Like I don't know about you, but I remember having a really fun boss when I was younger and it was like it's fun to go to work and this guy was really like chummy and cute, but you didn't mess around Like you were on time for work, he didn't show up late, he didn't screw around on the job. That kind of leader can get the most out of people and so when you think about the scouting part, I would say always scout, always focus on who you're hiring and recognize that even the best hires are not going to perform well if you put them into a toxic culture.
Intro:They will start to wilt.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Or they will die on the vine, or they will quit you. They're not staying with you and they're not going to be great employees.
Dr Jason Littleton:That's good. I love that. I love that Well said. Another question that comes to my mind you know, as physicians, you know we work with partners beyond our own team, whether it's a network of specialists, we refer to third-party partners that we work with. My question to you is how can you maintain consistency and culture when your team may include these ancillary people like specialists, referral partners, independent providers, things like that? How do you still deliver that white glove service to your patients when it seems like some of these other referral partners are out of your control?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yes, yes, and they are right. It's very true. This is true in every industry because everyone has partners Like you even think about. Or the hospital probably outsources a security company, so you've got someone at your front door from a security company that you don't control because they work for somebody else. And so it's true everywhere and it always impacts the experience of your patients or your customers.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:The key here is again going to be relationship building and sourcing, like scouting out your partners who are aligned in how they think about the patient experience and the mission that you are on, so finding like-minded people who also want to treat patients that way, even if they're within the insurance world, that they might not get the hour-long time slot, but they're going to get the eye contact and the care and the listening and feel like they are really being heard.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I would be looking for partners like that. Also, a lot of organizations that I work with build what they call um centers of influence, like all of the ancillary people around them who would interface with their same demographic of customer patient, creating a community where it's almost like that good housekeeping seal of approval right. Like these are the people that we know share our ethos and want to provide the same level of care. So I think it's really important to scout that out and build those relationships. And I guess the last thing is that I'm thinking in my head but not saying out loud. You have to communicate it. You have to be really clear with the people that you're going to partner with, that you're trying to create a different kind of patient experience and you'll hope that they'll come along for the ride with you and so you know it might be the personal relationship you build with the physician that really turns the dial on that.
Dr Jason Littleton:That's good. That's good, and you know I've sort of asked this, but I want to. I want to ask this exact question what's the best way to onboard new team members so that they embrace culture immediately?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah, again, hospitality all the way, and this is through the whole hiring process. It's so important to make people feel like you really care about them. Hiring today has gotten so convoluted. You know, people send out a million resumes on Indeed with the push of a button and you don't even have to lick the envelopes anymore, right, like you just push the button and it goes to a million places. So we don't always have sincere applicants and it's easy then for companies to just say I'm just going to ignore all of these applications because I have too many and I'm and a lot of times end up going with someone who has referred to them. They're not even pulling from the online pool, right, and so the hospitality that you show in your process of responding to people even if it's an automated reply, but it's well crafted and it's thoughtful and thanks them for applying that was shock applicants today. They just don't get that anymore.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:When you finally make a hire and you make that a special moment, like you're joining our team and this is exciting Making the whole team around them aware of this new person coming, getting ready for their first day, like you're throwing a party. Like you know, their arrival is the arrival of the guest of honor at your table and having their space ready for them and being ready for them, having a schedule for them for the day. Like you're going to go around and meet with all of the different people today that you'll have contact with so that you get to know them. We have a schedule set up for you. You'll have lunch here, coffee here and like making them feel like they are joining something so special. I do that for a whole week. Like I have a whole week set up for new people that they're meeting with various people, but they're also getting training and education on the things that they need to learn.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So training is a huge thing also that I shouldn't just dismiss. I can't tell you how many companies I work with that put people in a job and don't provide them with adequate training. They assume that they'll learn from everyone around them. Well, when you learn from everyone around them, you learn the good and the bad. You learn all the right things and all of the bad habits and workarounds that people have created that aren't good habits, and so providing the right training to make sure that they're learning what you want them to learn is to me like a no brainer. But it shouldn't be. It has to have the same level of intention as everything else that I'm talking about here. So I would say key to onboarding is making them feel welcome, being ready for them, providing them with the resources, like the contacts and the connections that they need to be successful and the training that they need to know how to do their job.
Dr Jason Littleton:I love that. What do you think about the world of concierge medicine and hospitality?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I think it is amazing and a very special thing to be able to participate in. It is the way medicine is supposed to be and in your practice in particular home visits that's just amazing. And when you think about doctors, a hundred years ago, home visits were so important because you got to see how people live, and it gives you a lot more data about a person if you understand their life better. And it's something that I often feel about the physicians I see in network is that they don't really understand my life and so how can they be very good at even diagnosing? I feel like they miss things sometimes. Like did you hear me say that I travel a lot? Right, like.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So the time that you spend gives you the opportunity to learn more about your patients, which will give you the information that you need to make even better informed decisions for them. So I think it's an amazing thing the hospitality that you provide. I think everyone should be getting that. I don't think you need concierge medicine to be able to provide hospitality. It's a universal principle and it doesn't take any more time in your day to smile at someone, to make them feel like you really care about them, to ask them genuinely how they are and what they need and if they have any more questions, like they people think, it takes more time. It really doesn't, and I think patients are so sensitive to how much time they have with a doctor that they almost they're prioritizing their questions in advance, knowing that they're probably not going to get to ask them all With you. They get to ask them all.
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:And that's such a gift.
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, well said, I love that. Yeah, thank you for that. You know one of the things when I think about health, I have some universal principles that I share with every patient. You know my meds protocol move, eat, drink, sleep and you know every guest that I have on the podcast. I always ask these questions because I like to learn how people who are high functioning, network a lot, run huge organizations, speak, travel like you do. How do they move, eat, drink, sleep, how do they stay healthy? How do they keep going? How do they not burn out? I was hoping, susan, that you could share with us a little bit about how you move, eat, drink, sleep.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah, thank you, I'm happy to. So I'll do them in order, I guess. Moving, um, I am recently reattached to Pilates. I haven't done Pilates in eight years and the reason I stopped was because, again, it became too fast. Pilates classes were like switch, switch, switch, switch and you never focused on form. And I have now found a studio that's all about form and it's a much more relaxed and intentional environment. So I'm very excited about that.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:And yoga is very important for me because I sit a lot, I stand a lot. Posture is so important for me to keep myself healthy and so doing yoga really helps me in strengthening those muscles. So those are my two go-tos. And I love walking, but I don't do it enough. Honestly. I got a dog to make me walk, and the dog doesn't even like to walk, so it didn't help me at all. Um so, um, it wasn't the only reason I got the dog, um, so that's um. Moving for me. Um, eating is um. I, during the week, my husband and I eat really healthy. We eat a ton of vegetables and usually like just chicken, very like we can't grill in the city in New York City, but we can cook it in a very healthy way and keep light on the carbs at night. But I also enjoy fine food and I don't deprive myself of that, so I try to keep it balanced between enjoying and being healthy.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I do try to go no sugar as much as possible because, sugar really affects my joints and I get very stiff and very uncomfortable. And then for drinking I'm terrible about drinking water, so I actually poured myself a glass of water for the podcast because I know that you would approve of that.
Dr Jason Littleton:Leaning by example, Exactly, and I love tea, so I'll make myself would approve of that, leading by example, exactly, and the. I love tea, so I'll make myself a pot of tea Starts at the top.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:It doesn't count.
Dr Jason Littleton:No, I was saying that the water example you just gave it starts at the top, leading by example.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Okay, yes, it's true, it's very true. My husband's starting at the top because he's always pushing me, so I'll like make a pot of tea and drink it all afternoon.
Dr Jason Littleton:Tea counts. I love tea.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:But coffee in the morning, it's my enjoyment. I don't drink it because I have to. I just love my almond milk latte in the morning and I can't wait for it. That's acceptable, and if I don't drink it I don't get a headache, so I know I'm not addicted to it.
Dr Jason Littleton:It's acceptable. You can drink coffee.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Thank you, Not a lot. And sleeping is a little more tricky for me. I'm a night owl by nature but as I've gotten older I realized I need more and more sleep. When I was in my 30s I was getting no sleep because I had a young child and a busy job and I was living outside of the city and commuting. And I made a commitment to myself, a New Year's resolution one year, that I was going to get at least six hours of sleep a night Six, because I was getting less than that, and that changed my body. I could no longer go with less than six hours of sleep once I started doing that. So I am now a six to eight hour person.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:But all of this has been a challenge for me because last year I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was very lucky, it was early and it was small. It was a normal screening. So ladies listening to this and men with women in your lives mammograms, mammograms, mammograms like do not miss your mammogram. I honestly was not that worried about breast cancer because it didn't run in my family, but it did for me and so after that diagnosis I had surgery and radiation and I did really well with it.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:But hormone therapy has been a nightmare for me and it affects my sleep and it affects my ability to move, and that's why I'm newly into Pilates, because I'm finding that it's really helping me a lot. And so I would say to all the women out there who are struggling with menopause or cancer, my go-tos have been yoga and Pilates and they have meant so much to me. And, of course, eating healthy is always going to be important, because part of what I suffer with with the drugs is joint pain is always going to be important, because part of what I suffer with with the drugs is joint pain and keeping those joints going and lubricated, Like that's a big part of what allows me to keep going. I'm an energizer bunny Like I'm on all the time. I go, go, go, go go. I have not been able to do that for the last year. I'm like I am more limited in my time that.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I have good focus and good work and I have had to learn to prioritize work to know that I know these five hours are going to be really good and the rest of the day I can't count on. So what am I going to do in those five hours? So it's changed the way I work, but not necessarily in bad ways. Right, like it's, you get more intentional and you really think about how you're spending your time. You don't mess around, you don't scroll and like get caught up in reading multiple news articles in a row. Like you're intentional in what you do with the time that you know is going to be really productive time. Yeah, so does that answer your question?
Dr Jason Littleton:Yeah, absolutely. So. What I'm hearing is that you're intentional, you're strategic, you're maximizing the time so that you can maximize your energy. You're full of energy, like you were saying, that you just go, go, go, go, and I mean that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of the things that you said people can really resonate with and a lot of the health habits that you do can really help a lot of people, like the yoga, the Pilates.
Dr Jason Littleton:I love what you said you know about the six to eight hours of sleep. That seems to be your zone where you feel most energized, right, and and I always have felt that people need to know what their number is, you know, I mean, for me, I need like eight to nine hours and I feel like I'm ready to go. I can go all day and that makes a huge difference and I think you know just knowing little things like that. Enjoying food, like I heard you say that you like to enjoy food, you like to eat out. That's really good. I'm a big believer in that. You know, I don't like it when people get on a diet and then they avoid eating something that they really love to eat, not that you have to be excessive or anything like that. But, yeah, eating things in moderation, knowing when are those times that you can go out with friends and enjoy yourself.
Dr Jason Littleton:I think that's important and that's what I'm hearing, and it sounds like these things keep you from getting burnt out and staying high, functioning right.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Yeah, yeah, yeah. A deprivation of food is. It just never works, right? It's such a bad habit, right? It just makes you want it more and you try to eat other things to avoid eating the thing that you really want to eat, and you end up spending more calories and maybe even eating ultra processed things to try to, you know, get away from the fact that you just want a little bit of chocolate, when a couple of chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips are my thing, like a couple of dark chocolate chips, and I'm good that satisfies that craving.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:So I think, knowing little hacks like that, that you can work with your body and I'm craving chocolate. Okay, well, I know that a couple of dark chocolate chips are not going to tip the scale on me, so I'm actually a fan of Weight Watchers for that reason. That's the only diet plan that I've ever been successful on, because it allows you to budget. You're like you have this much that you can eat, how do you want to spend it? And if I know that I'm going out to dinner, I'm going to be smarter in the morning, and so I've always found that to be a helpful program to me.
Dr Jason Littleton:Wow, this is so insightful, so refreshing. I'm so glad that you came on the podcast. This has been amazing and you know you reminded us that culture starts at the top. It's every day, in small moments, and ultimately shapes the experience of every person that we serve. You know our team feeling good and purposeful. That's everything I mean. I know I've learned so much from you today. I know my audience you know, has learned so much from you today. Again, just thank you for coming on. Where can people find you?
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I have a website. It's susansalgadocom, so if you can spell my last name, you got it. And um, I am um my phone number's there, my email's there. What's that?
Dr Jason Littleton:it's easy to spell. Okay, good, thank you it's actually in portuguese. It means appetizer okay, oh wow, I should have led with that.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:I didn't know that yeah, it's my husband name, it's not mine. Riley is my name, so, um, um, it's my name now and I had no idea what I was signing up for to be an appetizer. But there you go, so yeah website's the best way to reach me. All my contact info is there.
Dr Jason Littleton:Awesome, awesome. Well, listen, you know? Um, I just want to thank my audience for listening and I want to just put a reminder out there to make sure that you download this podcast. You're going to want to hear this over and over. Continue to follow us on Apple, amazon, spotify, instagram, facebook and LinkedIn. Again, thank you for listening. We will see you next time.
Susan Reilly Salgado, Ph.D.:Thank you.
Dr Jason Littleton:Thank you so much.
