Catalog & Cocktails: The Honest, No-BS Data Podcast The Data Hygienist with Thais Cooke
Mar 19, 2026
Thais Cooke, a former dentist turned senior healthcare data analyst, blends clinical experience with analytics insight. She talks about using domain expertise to spot patterns, learning SQL and visualization tools, building trust through honesty, and treating data work as problem solving rather than technical showmanship.
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Go Shadow The Work And Get A Mentor
- Engage the people doing the work: ask for workflows, documentation, and a mentor to learn real needs.
- Thais credits a long-tenured business analyst who explained processes and let her ask questions to build correct analyses.
Pick An Angle To Create Alignment
- Shared definitions reduce mismatched expectations by forcing an explicit angle for analysis.
- Thais often picks one working definition, shows results from that angle, and asks stakeholders if that aligns with their intent.
Earn Trust By Being Honest And Consistent
- Build trust by consistently delivering quality work, communicating, and being honest when you don't know something.
- Thais emphasizes saying "I don't know" rather than fabricating answers, and following up to resolve gaps.