Radio Rounds: Behind The Scenes

Yesterday, I was able to hang out at the studios of the Radio Rounds show/podcast on the campus of Wright State University in Dayton, OH. They broadcast Episode 410 live at noon eastern time and their guest was a recorded interview with Howard Dean.

In the video above, you'll see the what happens behind the scenes during a live podcast. It was so interesting seeing how the four co-hosts coordinated to make this show happen. As they talk about in the clip, this is the first time that these four have been in the same studio for a number of months. But, you'll be able to see the rapport that this tight knit group has.

I also invite you to check out the Radio Rounds crew from Doctor Anonymous Show 183 from a few months ago. You can download Show 183 how from the Dr. A iTunes page. I also invite you to check out the facebook page for my show. And, if you enjoy the video above, check out others from my YouTube page. Enjoy!

Twitter Mentor

I've had a lot of titles in my life. But, "Twitter Mentor" has never been one of them - until now. Over the weekend, I was asked to lead a discussion about social media with my friends at the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP). I've been involved with the organization all the way back to when I was a medical student.

The organization, lead by OAFP President Dr. Sarah Sams (pictured to the right above), has made it a priority this year to get involved and learn more about social media. This is where I come in. Not only was I asked to help come up with a strategy, Madame President asked me what twitter was all about and how to get signed up. In the picture above, Dr. Sams is tweeting for the first time.

This was also interesting, because in last night's HCSM twitter chat, question number three was this: You’re charged with setting a colleague/MD/exec up on social media. Who should they start following, listening to, and engaging with? Why? What comes first?

In the HCSM chat, they recommended finding a kind of social media mentor - which I totally agree with. I mean, hey even CEO's of companies are asking for help from the tech savvy set. Sarah has been great to work with on this. I encourage you to give her a follow @QuiltingDoctor - In addition, give a follow to the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians feed @OhioAFP. Thanks so much!

Show 189 Wrap-up

Thanks to my co-host Kat for joining me for Doctor Anonymous Show 189. Topics on the show included my travel from Seattle, some current news events, and me whining about the Ohio State loss last night. In the video above, we discuss a news story from the week talking about prescription drug abuse.

As always, you can listen to the entire audio podcast in the sidebar. Or, if you like, you can go to the show's iTunes page, download Show 189, and listen at your leisure. I also invite you to check out the show's facebook page and press the huge "Like" button at the top. Finally, check out my youtube page. Thanks for your continued support of the show!

Why Social Media Needs Physician Participation

One of the most common questions I get is this: "Why should physicians get involved in social media?" This past week, Swedish Medical Center in Seattle had a social media conference of which I was fortunate to be a part of (#Swedish100). I invite you to read more about the panel that I was a part of at this link here.

However, there was a lot of buzz this week generated by the presentation by Wendy Sue Swanson, MD who is otherwise known on twitter as @SeattleMamaDoc. She makes the best case of why docs should be involved in the social space during her inspiring program. Check out the video above. This should be required viewing by all docs and all those who doubt that physicians can make an impact in social media.

Social Health at BlogWorldExpo 2010

Just wanted to give a big shout out to my friends out in Las Vegas for BlogWorld Expo 2010. Last year, I was proud to be a part of the first Medblogger Track (now called the Social Health) track at #BWE09. I encourage you to check out a bunch of posts about #BWE09 from October 2009. This year's schedule is another impressive lineup. You can check out the entire #BWE10 schedule by clicking here.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this year's meeting. But, I will definitely be monitoring the twitter stream to see what is happening out there. I also wanted to announce that I am going to be canceling tomorrow night's scheduled Doctor Anonymous Show. Starting with the travel fiasco yesterday in trying to leave Seattle, being on call tonight, and going out of town again this weekend, I gotta find some time to catch up on the office work. I apologize for the inconvenience. I encourage you to check out the video below to see the highlights of last year's meeting. Enjoy!

Perspective Watching Miners Rescue

Life definitely keeps you grounded. Today has been a time of emotional ups and downs. Things started off on quite a high and I was finishing up the Swedish Medical Center Health Care Symposium. It's fun doing the entire live tweeting thing. Not only does it keep me on my toes as far as paying attention to the lecture and tweeting that out.

I was about 30 minutes before boarding my flight at SeaTac, when it was announced that my flight would be delayed for 2 hours due to mechanical problems. I knew that I was going to miss my connecting flight. So, I knew that I had to rebook my flight - hoping to get back to my home airport tonight. I was told that it was impossible to get home tonight, and that the earliest that I could get home was tomorrow.

Needless to say, I was really upset by this. No only am I in the office tomorrow, I'm also on call tonorrow night. Being mad and embarrassed, I had to call my office to let them know that I had to cancel most of my morning patients and to let them know that I would not be able to be on call until I got back in town.

As soon as I was able to arrange that, I heard the announcement that the "mechanical problem" was now fixed and that they would be boarding immediately. I had already got new boarding passes, and I could not get things switched back. I would still miss my connecting flight anyway.

For the next few hours, I remained mad. But I tried to make the best of things, by getting back to watch the live stream of #Swedish100 conference, take the picture above, and tweeting away again. That was fun to virtually re-connect with friends - at least for a little bit.

As I'm writing this, it is around 8:30pm pacific time, and on the TV right now is the coverage of the rescue of the miners in Chile (as of this post the first of 33 miners rescued in Chile). That leads my thoughts to the families of these miners who have been hoping for a miracle for the past few weeks. Suddenly, all my problems seem so small. My thoughts and prayers are with the miners and their families....

Social Health Panel at #Swedish100

I was very happy to he a part of the Pre-conference session of the 2010 Swedish Medical Center Health Care Symposium. Definitely felt a little intimidated being on a panel with a group of medical social media superstars (that probably shows in the video above - sheesh)

Our moderator, Nick Dawson, did a fabulous job at keeping us on track. As you'll see in the video above from our panel, he did a great thing in which he asked the audience if they had any questions. I think those opening thoughts really guided the panel in our discussion. Nick also asked about the composition of the audience. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of physicians in the audience.

The other panelists included Kent Bottles, Jen Dyer, and Bryan Vartabedian. Some themes that came out of the discussion were the issues that physicians are concerned about - Payment reform for electronic communications, Patient privacy concerns, and Liability issues. Another interesting theme that came out was showing a lot of love for twitter. If you had any question about how physicians utilize twitter for social media consumption - You must watch the video above!

In addition to our panel, there were presentations by Dave deBronkart and Wendy Sue Swanson. (As of this posting, EPatient Dave's talk is available, but SeattleMamaDoc is not - yet) I was also able to meet a lot of great people including Bill Thatcher, Greg Guenther, and Anita Beninger. I was even interviewed by Jessica Levco from Ragan Communuications. I'll post that interview here when it is made available.

I'd like to thank the Swedish team including Dana Lewis, Melissa Tizon, Aaron Blank, and a lot of other people that I am forgetting. If you'd like to check out the twitter stream, you can check out #swedish100. (In the video below, you'll see my attempt of recording a Q&A of a question about patient involvement with their care)

2010 Swedish Health Care Symposium

Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington will be hosting their 2010 Health Care Symposium next week on October 11-12. They have an impressive speakers list including the CEO of General Electric. Dr. Rod Hochman, the CEO of Swedish, is even on twitter - and - sent me a tweet back when I said hello. (Very cool!)

I will be taking part in one of the Pre-Conference sessions. The speakers for this Pre-Con session include Kent Bottles, Nick Dawson, Dave de Bronkart, Jennifer Dyer, Wendy Swanson, and Bryan Vartabedian. (In the video above, I discuss the conference with Dana Lewis from Doctor Anonymous Show 187)

If you're not able to attend the event in person, that's ok. Swedish is making it available on a live video stream. If you want to watch the Live Video Stream, just go to http://bit.ly/sw100live - Also, as you're watching the live stream, use twitter to take part in the conversation by using the hastag #Swedish100 - They will also be using the social media tool called CoverItLive to try to funnel some of the conversation.

Social Health Is Cool Right Now

Back in the dark ages only a few years ago when the intersection of medicine and the internet was in its infancy, there was not really a phrase or a word coined to describe medical people who liked the internet. Then, for lack of a better term, "Medbloggers" was used. This was kind of solidified by the weekly blog carnival called "Grand Rounds."

In addition, only a year ago, there was the first "Medblogger" track at the huge tech conference called BlogWorld Expo 2009, of which I was lucky enough to be asked to be a speaker for. Then, earlier this year, in the spring, I saw people using the phrase, "Social Health." This was especially prominent with the event named "SouthBy Social Health" - patterned after the very popular geek conference called "South By Southwest."

Now, in 2011, the South By Southwest meeting is going to have a "Social Health" track of programming. In addition, in Las Vegas this week will be the "Social Health" track at the 2011 BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas. So, if you want to be one of the cool kids and want to be seen on the cutting edge, forget Social Media - Call it Social Health, and hold your head up high!

Paper.Li: I Don't Get It

Ok kids, I need some help here. It seems like over the past month or so, I've been seeing something peculiar in my twitter stream. The links I'm seeing are for "newspaper" like appearances of twitter stream hashtags.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not calling out any particular hashtag "newspaper," but, in general, I just don't get. If I wanted to follow all the people these "newspapers" are following, I would do that. I don't need another twitter aggregator within my twitter stream. I do understand that platforms like this popped up since the introduction of the iPad and ipad apps like flipboard (BTW, I love filpboard when I use it on the iPad).

However, when I see this on my twitter stream, I'm starting to get a little annoyed by this. I know what you're saying, "Why not just unfollow them?" Well, the only thing that kind of irks me iw the paper.li link. Maybe there's a way to search for this and have this deleted from my twitter stream...

Now, I'm not going to completely write this off. So, this is where I need your help. For those of you who have a paper.li page and for those of you who read it, help me out here. Why do you use it and why do you read it? Leave your comments below. Thanks so much!