Social media

In academic medicine, promotion depends on the weight of our curricula vitae, measured primarily by the number of papers we publish in peer-reviewed journals. Physicians strive to jump through the hoops of publishing their work in “top” journals ranked by the “impact factor” (yearly average number of citations for a given journal). Yet the “impact factor” of these journals — even those considered most prestigious and most impactful — is ...

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A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. It is not uncommon for my patients and their family members to ask for my credentials at the end of our preoperative interview. Despite reaching my forties, my Asian genes have allowed me to maintain a youthful appearance – often causing apprehension about ...

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It’s been said that 80 percent of success is showing up, but that’s simply not true. Showing up is not enough.  Showing up reliably and giving your best is not enough. You’ve got to be seen showing up. So, how do you raise your professional visibility?  Here are five tips for the modern physician leader.  If you are a traditionalist, please keep an open mind.  The strategies below aren’t that ...

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Like many millennials I know, I was at first skeptical of podcasts. I couldn’t imagine keeping my attention on audio alone for at least 30 minutes and expect to retain any information whatsoever. I felt like I would get bored listening to people talking and would tune out within a minute with the eventual feeling of having wasted my time. Audio was meant for music that changed regularly. My headphones ...

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I love my podcast. I believe that it may become one of my greatest accomplishments in life. A podcast is like a talk radio show. The difference is that it is broadcast over the internet instead of on the radio. Podcasting is a fast-growing form of entertainment and educational media. I started podcasting a few months ago and I am starting to build a significant audience. I now have regular listeners ...

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As physicians and particularly surgeons, we deal with consent all the time. The process can be complex particularly for pediatric surgeons because we obtain it from the parents and the participation of the child in that process varies. For example, it is not unusual to be confronted with a parent who wants their child to undergo an elective operation. Yet that child, being 15 years-old, may have zero interest in ...

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Recently someone asked me how I started my blog, Brave Enough. The person, a physician, wondered how I made the jump from safe, traditional academia into the world of social media and blogging about women empowerment. “Did you have one moment? Did something happen? What was it?” The conversation made me reflect, as I have been, for several weeks. Like most things, my introspection ended up as words in my journal. Then, words in a ...

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The power of social media is clearly evident in cases such as the Russian influence on our election and Mark Zuckerberg‘s realization of the need for transparency on his powerful platform of Facebook. However, maybe not so evident, is the transformative power of social media on health care trends and misinformation. A popular new term for the misinformation regarding medical topics has arisen: pseudoscience. It has run rampant on sites such ...

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Recently, I attended a conference on social media. The conference was geared towards health care professionals who had a product they wanted to perfect and promote. In speaking with some of these participants, many of whom were physicians, I realized they had no clear marketing plan.  Although a clear and concise marketing plan would help sell their product, I understood that they were working full time and their product was ...

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