Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

Medbloggers As Press: Second Class Citizens Or New Media Elite?

dr_val_jones_163I’ve been covering a lot of health and medical conferences lately, and experiencing a wide range of reactions to my work. For those in the media who “get” blogging – I’m treated with honor and respect. One conference organizer kindly lined up the key note speakers for me to interview, not allowing them to leave until I’d asked them all the questions I desired.

A different conference PR team forbade me to Twitter during the conference believing that “Twittering” was code for recording the conference and selling it to those who didn’t want to pay the high attendance fees. One CEO enthusiastically beckoned me over to speak with him (seeing my bright green press ribbon) and then looked at my title “blogger” and said in an irritated voice, “oh, you’re not real press.” At yet another conference I was invited as press and then asked to pay $30/day for Internet access. When I asked if I could interview the keynotes I was told, “I’m sure they won’t want to talk to you.”

As you can see, my experience has varied from being treated like a second class citizen, to being critical to the PR strategy. As a physician and a member of the National Press Club, I find it amusing to be “shattering the categories” in all kinds of ways. Most people find it hard to reconcile that I’m a “real doctor” who is also a full time blogger. I see patients once a week, and I cover conferences/conduct interviews/evaluate news on my blog the rest of the time. “But you can’t be a real doctor,” they say, peering at my press badge, “you don’t look like one.”

For PR and communications strategist in the know, medical bloggers are powerful way to reach their target audience. Better Health, with its partner sites and blogger network, reaches over 11 million unique viewers per month. As the CEO, I have been invited to speak at AMA sponsored conferences, on CBS and ABC news, at the National Library of Medicine, and have been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, and LA Times. A PR executive told me recently, “forget the Today Show, Better Health reaches a larger and more targeted health demographic.”

And yet, blogging and new media are ahead of industry, traditional PR, and communications efforts in healthcare in terms of reach and influence. Very few have figured out how to work with medical bloggers in any consistent way, even though there’s a great new channel to do so: the Better Health network.

As I have often said, blogging is upstream of mainstream media. It’s a great place to be, though misunderstood by some. I’ve grown a thick skin and expect confused looks – because I know that in a year or so, medical bloggers will be an integral part of health conference coverage, probably upstaging their current mainstream counterparts. One day soon blog networks like Better Health will be in a position to hire journalists as part of a new hybrid team of reporters and scientists, better able than ever to communicate the significance of health news.

Imagine getting immediate commentary from a researcher who understands the complex science behind a medical breakthrough? Even the best health writers are often ill-equipped to know how to interpret author spin or biostatistics. But by combining those trained in journalism with those trained in medicine – and producing content that is conversational and accurate – readers gain access to a deeper understanding of health information. The old journalism mantra “we report, you decide” becomes “we interpret, you decide.” And for those without a medical background, the interpretation can add tremendous value.

As the world adapts to the Internet age, watch for a fundamental shift in the way health information is reported. Adding physician, nurse, and scientist writers into the mix will only enhance the quality of what we read. In a world grieving the loss of newspapers and health beats, I remain optimistic – because I believe we’re on the verge of a rebirth in health communications, and we’ll all be better for it.

Heard Around The Blogosphere: 2.22.09

greysharkI thought I’d highlight some interesting posts written by my peers this week. Keep up the great blogging, everyone!

Healthcare Policy

This is what happens when you begin the process of bailing out key stakeholders in our economy:  h/t Happy Hospitalist

Britain’s NHS has hired teams of bureaucrats whose sole purpose is to enforce health coverage denials. Dr. Crippen also notes that the NHS will cover sex change operations, but not ear repair from piercings.

The number of Americans without health insurance is increasing by 14,000/day. H/t Shadow Fax.

Just Plain Gross

Thanks to Medgadget for featuring a story on grey nurse sharks. Apparently their young, while still in the womb, cannibalize each other until only one is left in the uterus. They even linked to a video of fetal sharks devouring one another. Eww!

Bad Science Of The Week

Thanks to Mark Hoofnagle for deconstructing the laughable PLoS article suggesting that cell phone exposure increases migraine risk but decreases Alzheimer’s and epilepsy risk. The study was a statistical fishing expedition that proposes random cause and effect.

Good Doctor

Dr. Theresa Chan coaxed a 90 year old man out of somnolent delirium by singing to him.

“Bad Doctor”

By not caving in to a 16 year old’s request for a medical excuse from school or admitting a patient to the hospital for walker training and observation, this doctor won no brownie points with his patients.

Funny Patient

Nurse Gina witnesses a post-op patient give a doctor a math lesson.

Tragedy

A physician mother struggles with the immanent death of her 4-year-old with brain cancer.

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

Read more »

How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

Read more »

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles