April 28th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Expert Interviews, Health Policy
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Sam Solomon over at Canadian Medicine, did a great job of introducing our recent interview. Please check it out.
Educated in Nova Scotia before she moved to the United States to do degrees in biblical studies and medicine, Dr Val Jones is now one of the most popular physician bloggers. Her work has appeared in MedPage Today, Revolution Health, a now-defunct blog called Dr. Val and The Voice of Reason and, most recently, her own internet company Better Health.
Last year, Dr Jones was accredited as a member of the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and has focused much of her recent reporting on health policy reform efforts. She still practises medicine part-time as a rehab specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr Jones is also a talented cartoonist and her cartoons‘ take on medicine displays a sharp, wry sense of humour.
This week, Dr Val agreed to answer some questions for Canadian Medicine:
Canadian Medicine: Did you know as an undergrad at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that you wanted to be a physician?
Click here for the rest of the post.
April 16th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Opinion
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I’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.
January 13th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Medblogger Shout Outs
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Dr. Val is hosting the historic inauguration day Grand Rounds at MedPageToday. Please send your submissions to this email address: valjonesmd AT gmail dot com. Put “Grand Rounds Submission” in your email title and please use this format for the body of your email:
- Post title
- Post url
- Short description of the post
- Blog title
- Blog url
Although I have never done a themed Grand Rounds before, it would be terribly remiss of me not to acknowledge healthcare reform on the very inauguration day of our new President, Barack Obama. So please send me your best posts about the change you’d like to see in healthcare. If we do a really great job of this, maybe Tom Daschle will take a looksie? Don’t laugh, but DC is a small world – I share a hair stylist with Tom’s wife, Linda!
Please send me your submissions by midnight, ET, Sunday January 18th. I will include all submissions, but will give more weight to those that are about healthcare reform.
For those of you who are reading this and wondering what on earth I’m talking about – please read about Grand Rounds here. It’s the weekly summary of the best blog posts from the medical blogosphere.
My inaugural Grand Rounds will be published at MedPageToday at 8am, Tuesday, January 20th. (This link will work from that time on). I hope that we’ll reach an unprecedented number of readers on this platform.
I look forward to receiving your submissions!
Warmest Regards,
Val
P.S. Please enjoy Barbara Kivowitz’s Grand Rounds this week – it has a Sci Fi theme! The January 27th edition of Grand Rounds will be hosted by: Chronic Babe.
January 8th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Friday Funny
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By Steve Simmons, MD
In order to solve the increasing shortage of primary care doctors many experts have proposed a plan to fill the void with nurse practitioners (NPs). This acknowledges the necessary role primary care plays in our health care system while ignoring the actual qualifications for the job. Furthermore, by failing to address why doctors are leaving primary care these experts unwittingly will ensnare us further in the same trap we currently find ourselves in today. Independent of whether or not nurse practitioners are qualified to practice medicine without a supervising doctor is the following fact: they are avoiding primary care medicine for the same reasons as doctors.
As we determine who will take the lead on providing primary care, we should consider what is best for our patients. Nurse practitioners fill an invaluable role by taking on many of the day-to-day problems and there is little doubt that our patients benefit from their skill and experience. Anyone suggesting that nurse practitioners can replace physicians should understand that the nurse practitioners’ training program teaches them to provide care within the structure of a healthcare team led by a supervising doctor.
What can doctors provide their patients that nurse practitioners cannot? Depth of knowledge. Seven years of study in medical school and residency provide a doctor with the depth to understand complex medical conditions more difficult than the average day-to-day medical problem. With experience, many nurse practitioners can provide excellent care for patients suffering a difficult or unusual problem; yet without that experience this lack of depth can be the difference between a good and bad outcome.
A very good nurse practitioner I work with once said, “I am only as good as the doctor backing me up, when I am working with a good doctor, I’m great.” This helps exemplify how nurse practitioners can rely on physician supervision to help prevent unnecessary tests, procedures, and misdiagnoses.
When a patient needs the care of a specialist, a nurse practitioner might find it difficult to advocate for the patient without the necessary parity of experience with the specialist. In my training, it was unthinkable to give absolute control of a patient to a specialist. Specialists need to focus often leaves them unable to best serve the overall interests of the patient. While no primary care doctor can perform a highly technical procedure on their patient, they can advise as to whether the procedure is necessary or not. Every patient needs someone to coordinate their care plan while keeping in mind his overall best interests. An unsupervised nurse practitioner may find it intimidating to tell the enthusiastic specialist “no” while advocating for what is best overall for the patient.
The idea that you can replace a doctor with a nurse practitioner does not address the underlying problems that will continue to drive all healthcare providers away from primary care medicine. I hope that anyone suggesting a solution for the shortage of primary care doctors tries to understand why the shortage has occurred in the first place. Then and only then will there be enough primary care providers to care for us all.
Until next time, I remain yours in primary care,
Steve Simmons, MD
January 6th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements
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Well, I’m a finalist in the medblog awards… but I need your votes to win. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be crushed by Respectful Insolence – but it’d be nice to give him a run for his money. Any takers?
VOTE FOR VAL – CLICK HERE
Thanks! 😀
My friend Kerri Morrone Sparling is also in the running for best patient blog.
VOTE FOR KERRI – CLICK HERE
