Social media

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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In early April 2017, a cover of The New Yorker depicting four medical providers sparked a movement within surgery. Women surgeons claimed this illustration as a rallying cry; recreating it proudly with colleagues in the operating room and sharing their images on social media tagged with #NYerORCoverChallenge and #ILookLikeaSurgeon. We were in our fourth year of general surgery residency when we became the ...

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After an orthodontist blogged about an emergency visit where his patient broke her retainer after watching Michael B. Jordan in the blockbuster hit, the Black Panther, the young woman identified herself as the anonymous patient after learning about the story via Twitter. Though she was initially quite embarrassed, she was ultimately good-natured about all of the unexpected publicity. The natural question for many health care providers was ...

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Fear of exposure I hear from a lot of my professional friends, especially the doctors I'm in touch with regularly, about the fear of diving in — of starting out on their own social media journey. They're watching us all swim around them, paralyzed by the thought of even dipping in their feet. It’s OK to feel that way. We all start somewhere, and many of us have experienced the same ...

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I have a colleague who is a pediatrician in private practice in the suburbs. He has a great practice and loves his patients. One day, he walked in 15 minutes late to a 7:00 a.m. meeting we both attend. “Moms are calling early today.” Parents in his practice have learned to bypass their elaborate phone triage system. They have learned that if you press “1” for emergency, an actual doctor ...

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Patients have a lot of choices when it comes to physicians.  Making sure your online profile is up to date, complete, and contains these five items will improve the chances that a website visitor will become a patient. Create a personal connection. Having good rapport with patients is important, and that process starts before patients ever walk in the door. How often have you seen a physician bio that only contains a single, ...

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