Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing on the NSA’s PRISM program raises some interesting questions regarding social media in healthcare. I had a few physicians both inside and outside of the community I manage ask, “Is the government watching what I say about my clinical experiences?” The answer is of course “Not yet,” but the sentiment weighs heavier than the question, and the weeklong dip ...
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Brought to you by MedPage Today.
1. Organ Donors Will Sign Up on Facebook. Despite years of media and public service campaigns appealing for organ donations, donor rates remained static while demand increased -- until Facebook.
2. MRI May Spot Meningitis from Tainted Steroids. A screening MRI may provide early warning of spinal or paraspinal meningitis in patients who received contaminated steroid injections.
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You’ve heard all of the advice about backing up your computer regularly, making sure that you have your passwords stored in a safe place, protecting yourself against digital identity theft, but what does that have to do with providing care for a person with special needs?
Let’s count the ways.
First: Resources. Much of the information you need is online, and your personalized data may be password-protected. Anyone who has ever been ...
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The position paper from the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards, is a humbling reminder of the challenges that today's physicians face when entering the online space.
Their recommendations for online medical professionalism, written by ethics committees for the two organizations, "provides recommendations about the influence of social media on the patient–physician relationship, the role of these media in public perception of physician behaviors, and strategies for physician–physician ...
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How should doctors behave online? This is a funny question, isn’t it?
Medical establishment loves rules and hierarchy. Social media does not. Social media levels the playing field of who gets to talk; it gives real caregivers a voice. That’s very cool.
This is just a guess, but I suspect there are many more acts left to play out in the healthcare social media play.
The American College of Physicians and the Federation ...
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I love social media so much that I give seminars on how academics should use it to advance their careers and fields of study. Today I’m writing about what I hate about it to answer a question often posed to me by social media skeptics: what are the downsides to participating in social media? At the risk of completely undermining my mission to encourage greater academic presence on social media, ...
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In late fall of 2011, I was tired of medicine. While seeing patients was still enjoyable, I felt underappreciated in my employment and frustrated by the endless BS that I dealt with -- new laws undermining the trust my patients place in me, increasing requirements from insurance companies for ordering tests or medications, more forms to sign, less time with patients, a cumbersome EHR to learn, more non-CME education requirements ...
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The General Medical Council (UK) published new guidelines that state, “If you identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should also identify yourself by name. Any material written by authors who represent themselves as doctors is likely to be taken on trust and may reasonably be taken to represent the views of the profession more widely.” This has ...
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Part of the KevinMD toolkit series.
A lot of people ask me, “What tools do you use for blogging, speaking, when you’re on the road, seeing patients etc. ...” So I decided to start a series that describe what tools I use, and why.
First in this series are tools I use for my social media keynote presentations. ...
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I sincerely thank those who have reviewed or mentioned Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation.
1. Doctors and Their Online Reputation. The New York Times' Well.
"The book is an excellent and helpful resource. But what elevates it beyond the category of valuable how-to manual is the passionate call to arms that resonates from all those well-enumerated directions and clearly labeled diagrams. Like it or not, the ...
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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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Past 6 Months
What I’ve learned from saving physicians from suicide
Pamela Wible, MD | PhysicianDear lawmakers: This is what it’s like to be a doctor today
Matthew Moeller, MD | PhysicianIf I’m wrong about guns, can you please explain why?
Claire McCarthy, MD | PhysicianIs Chris Christie too obese to run for president?
Jeffrey Parks, MD | PhysicianPrimary care doctors may no longer be needed
Doug Olson, MD | PhysicianWalgreens moves into primary care, and it’s our own damn fault
Kevin Pho, MD | Kevin's Take