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Social media in medicine

479 articles · Since 2007

Articles, page 7

The highest rated doctors may not provide the best care

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The public can rate and review most things today: books, hotels, and restaurants, to name a few. Even doctors. There are more options than ever where patients can rate their doctors online, and hospitals also routinely survey patients about how…

A version of column was published in USA Today on September 14, 2014.

The public can rate and review most things today: books, hotels, and restaurants, to name a few.  Even doctors.  There are more options than ever where patients can rate their doctors online, and hospitals also routinely survey patients about how satisfied they are with their physicians. But while you’re pretty much …

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The highest rated doctors may not provide the best care

Ebola in the digital age: How doctors can confront it

With the recent attention given to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the cases diagnosed in the United States, one of the main ways in which the public is being informed is through social media. Every single day on…

With the recent attention given to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the cases diagnosed in the United States, one of the main ways in which the public is being informed is through social media. Every single day on Facebook, I see at least one story posted about the Ebola epidemic and its potential impact on the U.S. public and …

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Ebola in the digital age: How doctors can confront it

Twitter counts for this doctor. Read why.

Whenever I speak about social media, much of it has to do with Twitter. It has become part of my daily routine, much like checking email or going to news media sites. I will often check-in on Twitter and will…

asco-logo Whenever I speak about social media, much of it has to do with Twitter. It has become part of my daily routine, much like checking email or going to news media sites. I will often check-in on Twitter and will respond to items of interest — whether or not tweets were sent directly to me. However, I am cognizant …

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Twitter counts for this doctor. Read why.

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How blogging relieved a physician from the daily grind

Martin Seligman, PhD, in his book Authentic Happiness, references a colleague, Mike Csikszentmihalyi, when discussing the concept of “flow.” For Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, flow is that feeling one gets when fully engaged or “in the zone” with an activity during…

Martin Seligman, PhD, in his book Authentic Happiness, references a colleague, Mike Csikszentmihalyi, when discussing the concept of “flow.”  For Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, flow is that feeling one gets when fully engaged or “in the zone” with an activity during which the passage of time seems suspended.  Often, the activity is aligned with one’s natural, signature strengths.

For me, flow comes when I’m mountain biking: There are moments without thoughts, it’s just …

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How blogging relieved a physician from the daily grind

Academic promotions should consider social media

In August, I posted this: "A paper of mine was published. Did anyone read it?" A recent comment on it raised an interesting point. Dr. Christian Sinclair at Pallimed said the site had received almost 2 million views since 2005.…

In August, I posted this: “A paper of mine was published. Did anyone read it?”

A recent comment on it raised an interesting point. Dr. Christian Sinclair at Pallimed said the site had received almost 2 million views since 2005.

He then made the following calculation:

Two million views with an average of 1:30 minutes on a page = 3 million minutes = 50,000 hours = 2,083 days = 5.7 …

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Academic promotions should consider social media

Facebook should stay out of health care. Here’s why.

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The Internet was recently atwitter (see what I did there) about the major health care story of Ebola in the United States. However, there was also a interesting rumor announced at the end of last week, to which people should…

The Internet was recently atwitter (see what I did there) about the major health care story of Ebola in the United States. However, there was also a interesting rumor announced at the end of last week, to which people should really be paying attention.

As reported by Reuters, Facebook is taking aim at health care, your health care: “The company is exploring creating online ‘support communities’ that would connect Facebook users suffering from …

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Facebook should stay out of health care. Here’s why.

The ALS ice bucket challenge: Analysis of why it went viral

The ALS ice bucket challenge, better known as #ALSIceBucketChallenge or #icebucketchallenge, was almost the perfect storm for viral fundraising. In my course, Designing Health Campaigns Using Social Media at Tufts University, we analyzed why the challenge went viral. Not surprisingly,…

The ALS ice bucket challenge, better known as #ALSIceBucketChallenge or #icebucketchallenge, was almost the perfect storm for viral fundraising. In my course, Designing Health Campaigns Using Social Media at Tufts University, we analyzed why the challenge went viral.

Not surprisingly, given its popularity, my students had all heard about it and watched challenge videos. About half had done it. Some researched amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and …

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The ALS ice bucket challenge: Analysis of why it went viral

Medical journals have to become more like blogs

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An orthopedist asked me if I could explain why a couple of papers of his did not generate any feedback. He wasn't even sure that anyone had read them. He enclosed PDFs for me. Not being an orthopedist, I cannot…

An orthopedist asked me if I could explain why a couple of papers of his did not generate any feedback. He wasn’t even sure that anyone had read them. He enclosed PDFs for me.

Not being an orthopedist, I cannot comment on their validity.

But I think I can explain why the papers have not created much interest.

Are you familiar with the term, “impact factor“?

A journal’s impact factor is an

…

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Medical journals have to become more like blogs

Broadcasting suicide in social media: A failure of responsibility

In every life we have some trouble When you worry you make it double Don’t worry. Be happy. It will soon pass, whatever it is. Don’t worry. Be happy. – Bobby McFerrin Much has already been written in reaction to…

In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don’t worry. Be happy.

It will soon pass, whatever it is.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
– Bobby McFerrin

Much has already been written in reaction to Robin Williams’ untimely death, about his incandescent talent, his prolific career, his decency and kindness, his addiction and his mental illness. His death robbed his fans of many more years of his genius …

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Broadcasting suicide in social media: A failure of responsibility

How physicians should respond to online ratings: Lessons from the Union Street Guest House

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What can physicians learn from the Union Street Guest House? For those who don't know, this hotel in New York threatened to fine those who dared write a bad review. The New York Post got wind of this, and needless…

What can physicians learn from the Union Street Guest House?

For those who don’t know, this hotel in New York threatened to fine those who dared write a bad review.  The New York Post got wind of this, and needless to say, the fallout has been ugly. The hotel has hundreds of 1-star reviews of Yelp for its efforts.

This leads to a question I commonly …

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How physicians should respond to online ratings: Lessons from the Union Street Guest House

Informed consent and the ethics of the Facebook news feed study

3

I’m simultaneously a behavioral researcher, an ethicist, and a hopeless Facebook addict, so I’ve been thinking a lot about a recent controversial study in which researchers manipulated the emotional content of 689,003 Facebook users’ news feeds. In summary, users who…

I’m simultaneously a behavioral researcher, an ethicist, and a hopeless Facebook addict, so I’ve been thinking a lot about a recent controversial study in which researchers manipulated the emotional content of 689,003 Facebook users’ news feeds. In summary, users who saw fewer of their friends’ posts expressing negative emotions went on to express more positive and fewer negative emotions in their own posts, while users who saw fewer posts …

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Informed consent and the ethics of the Facebook news feed study

The impact of social media on cancer care

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I recently had the privilege of participating in a meeting hosted by the President's Cancer Panel on the role of social media in improving cancer control and treatment. The goal was to give advice to the Panel on a planned…

american cancer societyI recently had the privilege of participating in a meeting hosted by the President’s Cancer Panel on the role of social media in improving cancer control and treatment. The goal was to give advice to the Panel on a planned series of meetings they will be convening to discuss the topic. It was the range and quality of the discussion …

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The impact of social media on cancer care

Doctors, stay safe: The malpractice implications of social media

Is the phone in your pocket increasing your risk of being sued for medical malpractice? As more and more of our daily lives is being recorded and shared -- with or without our permission -- health care is no longer…

Is the phone in your pocket increasing your risk of being sued for medical malpractice?

As more and more of our daily lives is being recorded and shared — with or without our permission — health care is no longer a fully safe harbor of privacy and consent. For reasons both clinical and social, in practices both ethical and ill-advised, individuals are …

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Doctors, stay safe: The malpractice implications of social media

More medical academic literature is needed on social media

A PubMed query of the phrase "social media" yields 8,747 unique peer-reviewed articles. When the search is refined to "social media medical education" there are 578 articles. When “professionalism” is also added to the search string, there are only 31…

A PubMed query of the phrase “social media” yields 8,747 unique peer-reviewed articles.  When the search is refined to “social media medical education” there are 578 articles.  When “professionalism” is also added to the search string, there are only 31 article results.  This suggests that very few authors are writing about the topic: Approximately 0.4% of the available peer-reviewed literature about social media pertains to how we doctors should use and …

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More medical academic literature is needed on social media

Use social media to help clear health misinformation

Thousands of health care providers now utilize Twitter and other social media as a means of communicating and staying in touch. We follow conference hashtags from afar to keep up-to-date, and to e-meet new and interesting people who share a…

Thousands of health care providers now utilize Twitter and other social media as a means of communicating and staying in touch. We follow conference hashtags from afar to keep up-to-date, and to e-meet new and interesting people who share a common goal. In this way, we are able to grow our networks, foster our relevance, improve our knowledge base, and reach out to assist others.

Whether we are physicians, nurses, or physical …

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Use social media to help clear health misinformation

What doctors tweet about when they tweet about cancer

When doctors tweet about oncology, they tweet about breast cancer. A lot. Last year, about 4,000 doctors tweeted about cancer generating somewhere in excess of 80,000 tweets. And more than one in four -- a whopping 26 percent -- mentioned…

When doctors tweet about oncology, they tweet about breast cancer. A lot. Last year, about 4,000 doctors tweeted about cancer generating somewhere in excess of 80,000 tweets. And more than one in four — a whopping 26 percent — mentioned breast cancer, according to an analysis of physician tweets that we conducted for the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

That doctors talk overwhelmingly about breast cancer is either a ho-hum …

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What doctors tweet about when they tweet about cancer

The ethical dilemma of being a runner, doctor and journalist

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Is it possible for a doctor to be a journalist? A journalist a doctor? A runner to be a journalist and a doctor? In trying to be all the above I walked (arguably crossed) a line which sparked disappointment amongst…

Is it possible for a doctor to be a journalist? A journalist a doctor? A runner to be a journalist and a doctor? In trying to be all the above I walked (arguably crossed) a line which sparked disappointment amongst my co-workers, and criticism from the public.

When I started residency we had a lecture on the do’s and don’ts of social media. Don’t talk about patients, don’t post pictures of …

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The ethical dilemma of being a runner, doctor and journalist

Doctors who tweet aren’t ones who bill Medicare for millions

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The government dropped a gigantic dataset: details on nearly every single procedure performed by a U.S. doctor on a Medicare patient. The release was greeted with some serious gnashing of teeth, at least as far as doctors were concerned. The…

The government dropped a gigantic dataset: details on nearly every single procedure performed by a U.S. doctor on a Medicare patient.

The release was greeted with some serious gnashing of teeth, at least as far as doctors were concerned. The American Medical Association, which has always been staunchly opposed to the release of this sort of data, made sure it’s objection was — again — on the record. MedPage Today leads …

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Doctors who tweet aren’t ones who bill Medicare for millions

Who asks an anonymous physician blogger for advice?

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I'm often asked why I use a pseudonym. When I first started blogging almost 4 years ago, I was still in practice. Some of my posts are a little edgy and my sense of humor is not for everyone. I…

I’m often asked why I use a pseudonym. When I first started blogging almost 4 years ago, I was still in practice. Some of my posts are a little edgy and my sense of humor is not for everyone. I didn’t want patients to Google me and have my blog come up on the first page of hits.

Now that I’ve been retired for over a year, I still have not …

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Who asks an anonymous physician blogger for advice?

A doctor’s visit is not a social media situation

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I like a lot of things about Facebook. It allows me to see pictures and video of my nephews and niece and of friends’ children, it quickly lets me know when something big (either happy or sad) is going on…

I like a lot of things about Facebook. It allows me to see pictures and video of my nephews and niece and of friends’ children, it quickly lets me know when something big (either happy or sad) is going on in people’s lives, it lets me know what people are thinking about, and it gives me the opportunity to share my own news, thoughts, pictures, or occasional videos with others.

But as much as …

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A doctor’s visit is not a social media situation

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