#80: Michael Okun - The Parkinson's Plan, prevention, care, and the future of Parkinson's disease

How did that structure emerge?

Yeah.

So, um, you know, one of the interesting things about writing with people, it's, you know, it's, it's fun, right, when you have a group of people.

And so Ray and I, in particular, over the years, um, we banter, argue, you know, go back and forth.

I mean, he'll, like, read something that I wrote and, and, and he'll say, "This just doesn't resonate." And then I'll rip it completely up and then talk to him a week later and he'll be like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't mean for you to get rid of the whole thing."

Mm-hmm.

And I'm like, "Well, you know, like, if, if that didn't resonate, then I started over, you know, 'cause I, I really want this to resonate.

I want it to, you know, like, folks to, um, to, you know, like, really think about it." And, you know, one of, part of our journey has been, um, resonance, right? And, and understanding the core concepts that changed, you know, other diseases and try to apply them to our disease.

And, and also as researchers and clinicians, we tend to be poor communicators.

Yeah.

And, um, sorry to pick on anybody who's listening, but we tend to not communicate well-... to the masses-

Yeah

... and sometimes we communicate to each other really well.

And so that was a challenge.

And then thinking about, how do we take, you know, what, you know, message we want and package it? And so in the book, in 2020, uh, the, the book, Ending Parkinson Disease, you know, it's, it was, you know, as we were writing it, it started more like a chapter book, you know, like a bunch-

Mm

... of chapters, you know, and everything.

And I said, "You know what? Let's rip this up.

This is a chapter book.

Like, we've all written chapter books before.

What is the concept?" And so then we got into this whole idea of, what's the philosophy, what's the concept, and it took several years to write each of these books.

And, and, uh, and in that case, the concept that we came up with, the framework, was the PACT.

And of course, I kinda, this is kinda like, I like to riff on these things probably more than the other guys do, like, like, just keep, keep riffing it over and...

And it, and it was like, what is it that changed these other diseases? So in that case, it was prevent, advocate, care, develop new treatments.

Mm-hmm.