Have you ever Googled yourself or your practice? Did you know that you have an ever growing online reputation? Whether you know it or not, doctors have an online presence. When you type your name in a search engine you may be surprised by what you find. Everything you do professionally creates a digital footprint. If you are involved in social media then you are contributing to your online reputation. ...
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The world of healthcare is inherently siloed, tethered, fragmented and prone to poor communication and collaboration. Today, healthcare workers solve their problems via traditional methods that are often costly, inefficient, nor timely. Increasingly, more savvy healthcare workers are looking outside the system to digital media and communities for answers, but are challenged with uncertainty over concepts of usefulness, practicality, bandwidth issues, "ROI" and privacy concerns.
Establishing a digital presence is rapidly ...
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Doctor, do you Tweet?
No, not really. I registered on Twitter some years ago and began but did not keep it up, although I do have a number of Twitter followers. When I first checked Twitter out, the dominant drivel of narcissists pretty much turned me off.
Were you also slow to start using the Internet?
No, I quickly recognized a huge upside to a well-utilized Internet, so we were very early ...
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It’s not easy trying to describe the importance of family medicine in 140 characters. Just a few months after I logged on to Twitter for the first time, I joined the "family medicine revolution," known as #FMrevolution on the social networking site. My friends immediately noticed a marked change in my tweets. "FM revolution?" they’d say. "Is pop radio making a comeback?" If you’ve turned on a stereo lately, you ...
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Running a medical blog has become much more challenging over the years. It has always been understood by medical and health care bloggers that you should never post information that violates a patient’s privacy. In other words, do not post patient’s names, photographs of patients, or any other information that can specifically be used to identify them.
However, changing patient demographics and limiting the information discussed such that the patient ...
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I have a confession to make. Lately I've been doing some soul-searching regarding the future of my social media presence. It started at a lecture I attended a few weeks ago, where students and residents were cautioned to avoid public social media profiles and blogging. It came up again one morning while I was discussing some current events with other students, and was mentioned most recently at a professionalism ...
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In the course of our work as doctors we will undoubtedly witness events that change lives, but coming into medical school I never realized how directly some of these events would change my life.
Often in medicine we see people at the worst possible time. Patients are sick or grieving and rarely happy to be in our presence, no matter how great we might think we are. Usually, they are experiencing ...
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In a recent Harvard Business Review Blog, David Armano writes about the six pillars of influence that leads to measurably favorable outcomes.
To achieve measurably better health, the pillars Armano explains can certainly be adopted.
He notes how the "social web can amplify signals, influence behavior and lead to action."
Social networking has changed the landscape in health care. Technology has paved the way for instant communication and feedback.
While some ...
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In 1978, as I neared the end of high school and readied myself for medical training, a book called House of God was published by a doctor under the pseudonym Samuel Shem. By the time I read it as an intern eight years later it had become a cult classic among doctors. Everyone I knew in my hospital read it, passing around the single copy we had, writing our names in ...
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I would have told you, on our first visit, that I don't do well with soft science. But you appeared rushed, with an office full of patients, and I did not feel that I needed to explain my personality. You see, I am a logical and rational thinker, and my primary goal in life is to understand the world around me. I need proof. And then I probably need even ...
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"A comprehensive and extremely useful roadmap for doctors."
-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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