December 7th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion
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I know this woman – a physician. She spends a lot of time on Twitter. She has a Tumblr presence but it’s sparse and not very memorable. All day long she polishes her Twitter presence. She’s everyone’s friend. And to her credit she’s a wonderful curator. We caught up recently and she wanted to know how she could bring herself to the next level. Despite her time and investment in the latest real-time social tools she felt that her ideas didn’t get the traction that they deserved.
Here’s what I suggested: Twitter works for interaction and dissemination. But ultimately you have to create the stuff that defines you. Retrievable text, video and audio is where your ideas will live.
It’s about content, not Klout. You can share and engage, but it’s what you make that lasts.
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
December 5th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Opinion
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Would YOU as the patient see a doctor who is a well-known jerk, abuses drugs, gives the wrong diagnosis more often than not, and is known to like ordering very invasive tests??? Be honest…
The other week, a patient with a chronic cough exclaimed to me that she wished the fictional character Dr. House of TV fame actually existed in real life, because he was somebody who can diagnose anything.
I looked her straight in the eye and told her that somebody like Dr. House in the real world would be a physician nobody would want to see for many reasons:
- In the real world, patients expect doctors to have the correct diagnosis from the beginning (might forgive one wrong diagnosis). Dr. House seems to always get things wrong multiple times before he gets it right. I seriously doubt most patients would have stuck around as long as they do on the TV shows before going elsewhere. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
November 15th, 2011 by Shadowfax in Opinion
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Doctors are, famously, workaholics. That’s just the way it’s been forever, at least as far back as my memory goes. You work crazy hours in residency, you graduate and work like a dog to establish your practice or to become a partner in your practice, and then you live out your career working long hours because there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. I remember, growing up in the ’80s, that my friends whose parents were doctors were latchkey kids whose dad (usually the dad, then) was never at home when we were hanging out in the rec room playing Atari.
Yeah, Atari. Look it up, kids.
Not much had changed by the time I went to medical school. There was recognition of the fact that burnout was an issue — that divorces, alcohol abuse and suicides were more common among physicians than in other professions. The unspoken implication was that being a doctor was difficult and stressful, which increased the risk of these consequences of an over-burdened professional life. These stresses were accepted as part of the turf, as a necessary part of “being a doctor.” It wasn’t optional, and indeed, most physician teachers that addressed the matter chose to sublimate it into a mark of nobility. Being a physician was a calling and a duty, and a physician must gladly subordinate his or her own happiness and well-being to the service of their flock.
But things have changed, or at least a slow shift is in progress. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
November 14th, 2011 by Bryan Vartabedian, M.D. in Opinion
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I always loved to type. It started in high school with typing class. We were told that typing was critical for college term papers. I liked it so much that I took advanced typing. It was myself and 12 girls with Farrah Fawcett hair. Heaven.
Fast forward to 2011. My interface with the medical record is my fingers. Most of my communication flows through my hands. I complete the core of my documentation in the exam room. Fast documentation of information at the outset of an encounter allows for meaningful, eye-to-eye dialog during the latter part of the visit.
Those who can’t type have a different experience with their EHR. Sure there’s voice recognition but when pressed they wish they could make a sentence instantly flow onto the screen. Two colleagues this week, one from Barbados and another from the UK, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at 33 Charts*
November 3rd, 2011 by Dinah Miller, M.D. in Opinion
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Next week, it will be my turn to write our article for the Clinical Psychiatry News website. Over there, we try to have our writing more specifically aimed at an audience of psychiatrists. I’m going to be writing an article on Siri and the Psychiatrist….in honor of my new iPhone 4s and the “personal assistant” function named Siri. Okay, I’m obsessed. Everyday, I find new things it can help me with. Today, I asked it, “What’s the meaning of life.” What, you don’t ask your cell phone the finer existential questions? Siri answered, “All available evidence suggests chocolate.” Wow! How old is Liza Minelli? 65 years, 7 months, 20 days. Calculate a tip? No problem. Convert Celius to Fahrenheit? A cinch. And she takes dictation. “Siri, please text Patient A Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
