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Two Docs Who’ve Passed: They Might’ve Been Social Media Giants

January 2nd, 2011 by Nicholas Genes, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, True Stories
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This year I learned about the death of two physicians that were pretty important to me.

The first was my pathology teacher, Dr. Guido Majno. In addition to being a tremendously kind and curious person, he and his wife wrote the best textbook I’ve ever read.

The second death was that of my pediatrician growing up, Dr. Thomas Peebles. Funny, although he followed me from birth to high school, my family never knew about his incredible research background. We learned it in the many obituaries.

It’s worth reflecting on their accomplishments and the manner in which they conducted their lives and practice — especially in this era, when doctors are encouraged to develop their social media presence and be proactive about online reviews.

Would they have used these new tools? Would they even have needed them? Would they have found the idea of trading links to medical stories on Twitter to be interesting? Stimulating? Or maybe distressing or distasteful?

I never thought to ask them.

*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*

Electronic Medical Records, ER Wait Times, And The Medical Blogosphere

August 30th, 2010 by Nicholas Genes, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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Here’s a confession: Despite my steadfast advocacy of medical blogging as a means to promote understanding and education, I continue worry a lot about professional liability. Not just whether the things I write could hurt my career, but, in terms of academic output, is blogging a waste of time? What view does my department’s leadership take on blogging?

Still, I’ve continued to support medical blogging as a useful academic endeavor, hoping that someday this support would be borne out. When sites like Sermo and Facebook came along, I despaired that more physician opinions were going to be hidden behind walled gardens, available only to select colleagues or friends.

Then, last week, some revelations — I discovered a member of my department’s leadership was blogging, or at least, had commented on a  blog. How about that! The other revelation? Facebook may be the last great hope for academic discussions to flourish on blogs.

This all arose from a pretty academic question about emergency department implementation of electronic medical records. Does the degree of implementation (full, partial, or none) impact patient wait times in the emergency department? Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*

A Song About Ending Up In The Emergency Department

August 28th, 2010 by Nicholas Genes, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
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Somebody at Apple likes Goldfrapp. They’ve used her latest album for this tutorial and the sublime Seventh Tree was pictured on the first Apple descriptions of the Remote app. It’s nice when a monolithic institution shows a little personality. Of course, my interest in Goldfrapp is mostly professional: Who else has sung as well about ending up in an emergency department?

*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*

Health Highlights From The New Media Academic Summit

July 1st, 2010 by Nicholas Genes, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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I recently spoke at the panel on transparency at Edelman’s New Media Academic Summit. Ben Boyd was the moderator and Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation was my fellow panelist.

Reviewing some of the #nmas10 tweets from the audience, I figured I should provide some links for the anecdotes I mentioned:

• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy’s blog is still the starting point when talking about transparency in medicine today. I had the chance to speak with him a few years ago.
• Ed Bennett has done an extraordinary job following hospital social media adoption and highlights effective new media policies as well.
• Hospitals are using twitter and billboards to broadcast emergency department waiting room times. This is not without risk, as billboards may not clarify the triage process, where seriously-ill patients will be seen right away. 
• ACEP president Angela Gardner’s Twitter feed and ACEP’s blog. 
• A recap of Better Health bloggers’ meeting with Rep. Jack Ryan last summer during the healthcare reform debate. 
• Recent articles from NEJM and JAMA articles on medical students and social media.   
• A lot of the developments in openness in peer review and the world of grant funding are chronicled at Nature’s Peer-to-Peer blog. Bora Zivkovic has been and active an articulate defender of open publications as well.

Special thanks to Dr. Val Jones of Better Health for getting me involved with this group.

*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*

The Economics Of Medical Jargon

May 7th, 2010 by Nicholas Genes, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
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Many of the peculiar terms and phrases we’ve learned in medicine have found a new use in cyberspace, as titles of websites (consider 10 out of 10, The Central Line, or this blog — and that’s just emergency medicine sites).

But that’s the virtual world — what about the real world? I [recently] saw a couple of products that make me think medical parlance could sell physical products. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*