Posts tagged as:

twitter

Why doctors and nurses should engage in social media

September 21, 2009

Instead, the question should be, why shouldn’t you?
Kim McAllister, over at Better Health, gives some good reasons why health professionals should start a blog. But it shouldn’t just be limited to blogging, but the entire spectrum of social media tools, which give health professionals a powerful way to engage both patients and colleagues.
I recently [...]

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Poll: Is Twitter necessary for physicians and other medical professionals?

August 3, 2009

Twitter has captured the mainstream imagination, with celebrities and news organizations embracing the medium.
Will Twitter soon be an essential tool for medical practices?
Twitter is a social media service where users can communicate with one another in 140 characters or less. More doctors are using Twitter to connect both with patients and other medical professionals. Some [...]

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I’ll be on the Health in 30 Radio Show, Thursday, July 30th at 12:30pm Eastern

July 29, 2009

I’ll be appearing live on the Health in 30 Radio Show on Thursday, July 30th at 12:30pm Eastern, talking about medicine and social media.
Barbara Ficarra will be your host, and you can listen live on the web. Here’s the release:
We’ll talk about social media for health care professionals and we want to hear from [...]

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Why health reformers and politicians should listen to medical bloggers

July 13, 2009

“If you aren’t at the table, then you are on the menu.”
That’s a priceless quote from Dr. Val Jones, who primary care physician Rob Lamberts cites in a piece from MedPage Today. With health reform dominating Washington D.C. this summer, both patients and doctors “on the ground,” so to speak, are missing from the [...]

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Why are hospitals offering nurses free plastic surgery?

July 13, 2009

Is there pressure for nurses to look more like models?
The answer appears to be yes, in Prague. Citing an article in The New York Times, plastic surgeon Chris Hess (via Better Health) notes that nurses in that region are “under enormous pressure to look good in a society where attractiveness is often as highly [...]

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Is it dangerous for a doctor to be online?

July 10, 2009

As more doctors are blogging, using Twitter, or are on Facebook, minding their online reputation becomes more important.
I’ve written and cited several pieces on this issue in the past, and it cannot be stressed enough that what you write or say online stays there forever.
Over at his blog at White Coat Underground, internist PalMD writes [...]

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5 top medical comments, July 5th, 2009

July 5, 2009

Here are some of the more interesting comments readers have left recently.
1. Rogue Medic on how Oprah should be handling medical issues:
If she is going to give medical advice, and she is giving medical advice, and she is going to focus on giving advice contrary to the guidelines of reputable medical organizations, maybe some of [...]

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Patients die when doctors don’t talk to one another

June 29, 2009

Poor communication in medicine can kill.
I wrote a piece a few years ago on the issue (What we have in health care today is a failure to communicate), and fellow primary care doctor Rob Lamberts revisits the topic in a recent post.
In fact, he goes one further, saying not only does it cost money, “It [...]

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Why do health policy experts and wonks hate doctors?

June 24, 2009

Health policy experts have never been shy about their antagonism towards doctors.
The focus now appears to be on physician pay, with the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein, for one, continuing his anti-physician columns. Derek Thompson, over at The Atlantic (via @AllergyNotes), continues the assault, with a recent blog entry wondering if doctors deserve to be [...]

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Can Twitter be used to analyze your psychological profile?

June 18, 2009

Here’s a pretty interesting tool, as more people are online on Twitter.
Dan Zarrella, a social and viral marketing guru, has come up with TweetPsych (via TwiTip), a site that can build one’s psychological profile based on the content of their Tweets.
As he states on his blog, “Communication is a window into a person’s mind, and [...]

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How Twitter can strengthen the doctor-patient relationship

June 18, 2009

Pauline Chen goes social media on us in a recent column.
Focusing on Twitter, she recalls a patient with Buerger’s disease who tried to quit smoking. Unfortunately, the patient wasn’t successful, and had to have multiple amputations.
Dr. Chen wonders if like Twitter, blogs or Facebook had existed back then, would the patient “have felt a [...]

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Is Obama serious about medical malpractice reform?

June 15, 2009

Or is it a red herring?
President Obama is making a much-ballyhooed address to the American Medical Association today (and will be live-Tweeted over at MedPage Today), and perhaps not coincidentally, there’s a piece in today’s New York Times saying that Obama himself is one of the few supporters willing to address the issue of malpractice [...]

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Tips for doctors who use Twitter

June 13, 2009

Like everyone else, the medical establishment is increasingly using Twitter these days.
Over at Better Health, Bryan Vartabedian gives some sage advice for physicians who may not be used to the technology. Like every other social media platform, Twitter can be used to both help, and potentially harm, a doctor’s brand. And with that [...]

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Why don’t drug companies use Twitter?

June 5, 2009

It seems that most industries are rushing to jump aboard the Twitter bandwagon.
That’s true for most cases, with the pharmaceutical industry being the exception.
David Williams points out the lack of Twitter activity from the major pharmaceutical companies, where many of the Pharma-related keywords being owned by those not affiliated with the company.
Worse, when he looks [...]

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Physician payment reform is the key to fixing the health care system

June 1, 2009

Changing the way doctors are paid is more important than the debate over the public insurance option, or the arguments over whether we should adopt a single-payer system or not.
Atul Gawande’s recent New Yorker article is a tour de force, and gets down to the core of why American health care is so expensive. [...]

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Hospitals are using social media, like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, for advertising to patients

May 31, 2009

Traditionally conservative hospitals are opening up on social media platforms.
For those who follow this blog, or are on Twitter, you’ll probably notice that more and more medical institutions are having a Web 2.0 presence. Facebook groups, Twitter, blogs, or YouTube webcasts, for instance. Indeed, there’s even reports of academic centers using Facebook to recruit [...]

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