December 12th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion
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I suspect that in the next couple of years we’ll see the emergence of a viable social network for physicians. It hasn’t happened yet, but I suspect that we’re getting close. Physicians are increasingly dabbling in mainstream social sites.
But maybe that’s a problem. After all, a doctor can only hang in so many places. If you have “The Facebook for Doctors,” do you expect us to spend our time there instead of on Facebook itself? Maybe we will, and maybe we won’t.
Beyond the obvious requirement of a network to deliver value, I think the rate-limiting factor is old-fashioned bandwidth. You can only be one place at a time. If I spend my days on Twitter, I’m not likely to spend my days on said doctor’s network. I will go there for particular things and to talk to certain people about specific issues, but like most doctors I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what I want. I’ll know it when I see it. (Actually I do, but I’m keeping it tip-top secret.) Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
December 8th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Opinion
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The pros and cons of social media for physicians are nicely reviewed by a number of prominent medbloggers (including yours truly) by Bonnie Ellerin in her recent white paper (pdf). An excerpt:
There is a profound change sweeping the world of medicine. Technology is the driver, but it has nothing to do with a new drug, device or procedure. Rather it is about the change in physician behavior and mindset that technology — the Internet more specifically — has unleashed. Today, physicians of all ages and specialties are online, whether via laptop, desktop, or mobile.
With physicians’ acceptance of technology has come a new type of openness among a small but growing number. In the past, the only doctors who were likely to air views publicly were medical journalists. But, today, there are physicians who blog, tweet, email with patients, post videos, even check-in on Foursquare. If you have any doubt, just look at the “Favorite Blogs” section of a physician blogger or scan the list of followers/following of any doctor on Twitter, and you’ll get a sense of how many of them are getting social. Far more than you thought.
Read more HERE.
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
h/t: @hjlucks on Twitter via Smartblog On Social Media.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
November 4th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion
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It’s the great migration to digital. And as civilization makes its move, the pharmaceutical industry is trying to figure out how to reach out to physicians. Pharmaceutical reps are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Branded medication portals leave most doctors cold. Email outreach is marginal.
Pharma strategists ask me how to reach doctors in the new world. I don’t have an answer. It isn’t that I can’t come up with an answer. It’s just that a good one doesn’t exist. Why?
Doctors aren’t anywhere right now. They’re stuck somewhere between the analog and digital. Socially they’re nebulous. Their virtual communities are non-existent. Public social networks are sparsely populated. When they participate they watch and rarely create or discuss. Our profession is going through a lot right now and it’s evident in anemic digital adoption. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
October 7th, 2010 by Maria Gifford in Announcements, Better Health Network, Medblogger Shout Outs, News
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Check out this preview article (dated October 20, 2010) by Madonna Behen on Oprah’s “O” Magazine website entitled “4 Doctor’s Blogs to Read Now,” where two of the four doctors’ blogs listed are regular Better Health content contributors. They are family physician Lucy Hornstein, M.D., author of “Musings of a Dinosaur,” and internist, cardiologist, and cardiac electrophysiologist Wesby Fisher, M.D., author of “Dr. Wes.”
An excerpt:
You thought physicians were robotic and cold? A new epidemic of personal blogs written by docs might change your mind. These medical scribes are boldly posting their real feelings (and worst fears) on the web, for all the world to see. Their journals provide us patients with an informative and humanizing look behind the professional mask.
Congratulations to these great physician bloggers of ours for making up half of the list!
September 18th, 2010 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, True Stories
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When it comes to the social media landscape, doctors are scarce. Few on Twitter and fewer with blogs. Maybe we’re socially lazy. Or maybe we’re just taking it all in.
Mitch Joel of Six Pixels of Separation caught my eye last week with his article “In Praise of Lazy” and reminded me that despite the how we may want to see things, most of us aren’t interested in creating content. In fact, he describes a 1 percent rule — only 1 percent of the audience will take time to actually create content.
I suspect that if we were to take the time and do the survey properly, we would find that physicians too are largely new media consumers — or spectators, joiners or collectors in the Forrester sense of the word. Physicians, in fact, might adhere to something of a 0.1 percent rule. Like Peter Sellers as “Chance the Gardner” in the 1979 classic, Being There, we “like to watch.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
I suspect that in the next couple of years we’ll see the emergence of a viable social network for physicians. It hasn’t happened yet, but I suspect that we’re getting close. Physicians are increasingly dabbling in mainstream social sites.
