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Latest Posts

Conversation Is Not A Business Strategy

I don’t agree with the first thesis of the Cluetrain Manifesto which asserts: Markets are conversations. There’s a measure of truth to it, but it’s an assertion that can lead marketers down a narrow path that obstructs a larger view of the possibilities of media. If markets were indeed conversations, then we all could get rich just by conversing. No, leading an audience is what gets things done – conversation is simply a bonus feature of a two-way Web.

I need to make my point in the flesh. So here I am, presenting an elucidation of my thesis: Audiences are strategic imperatives [link to video if you can’t see the embed is here]: Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*

Twitter-Assisted Diagnosis

I have many reasons to use Twitter. One of them is that it’s quite easy to get feedback from doctors who also use Twitter for communication. Now one of my stories was featured in the New York Times.

Some people are even using Twitter for more urgent questions. Bertalan Meskó, a medical student at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, wrote a post about a patient with mysterious symptoms: “Strange case today in internal medicine rotation. 16 years old boy with acute pancreatitis (for the 6th! time). Any ideas?”

Within hours, specialists worldwide had responded, suggesting gallstones, lupus or growths on the pancreas. One of the suggestions helped the doctors with a diagnosis.

“It would have been impossible to find that specialist through e-mail, because we had no idea who to contact,” Mr. Meskó said.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Dr. Val Reports Live From HIMSS To ABC News

HIMSS 2010 is the largest Health IT conference of the year. I spent the last 3 days interviewing exhibitors in Atlanta about what’s hot in healthcare. For this segment I Skyped in to ABC News in DC to discuss some of the most interesting gadgets that I discovered during my interview process. The segment was short, so I only had the chance to present 3 devices: the Panasonic Tough Book, the GE Vscan, and Radar Find’s RFID tags.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDGYwm3ty20

How To Organize People In Real Time: Groundcrew

Jay Parkinson has recently found a nice service that is in beta version now. It’s called Groundcrew and lets you organize people in real time by combining the power of Google Maps with your online communities and friends such as Twitter of Facebook. For example, I would like to organize free lectures about DNA in order to educate people living in my neighborhood about genomics and health. It’s not that easy to find people around my home but this tool lets me spread the word easily and manage all the people who join the live feed of the event.

Give it a try and see how the demo works.

*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*

Social Media And The Future Of Hospital Communications

I took care of a young lady the other day whom I admitted for  diabetic ketoacidosis.  She asked me what her bicarbonate level was.  I was a bit surprised since most of the time my DKA patients’ don’t care what their bicarb levels are.  I told her it was eight.  For the non medical types out there, that’s low.  That’s critically low.
I asked her why she wanted to know.  And before she could even get the words out, she had posted a Tweet onto her Twitter acount to update all her friends and family of her impending hospital admission.  I found that fascinating. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Happy Hospitalist*

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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