Too Many Med Tweetchats?

Is it me or has the number of medically related twitter chats just exploded in the past 4-6 weeks or so? In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about the proper and improper use of the twitter hash tag. I mean if more than 50% of the tweet are hash tags, then I gotta problem with it.

Twitter by it's very nature is whiny. I mean, one of twitter's first functions back in the day (in my opinion) and one of the first uses of twitter for the newer user is a place to vent. And, people complain, whine, vent about a great variety of stuff. But, not about the number of tweet chats that have been popping up recently?

Maybe I'm crazy, but will twitter ever get to the point when there are too many chats? Probably not. However, something that I have seen in the past few weeks is the selection of what I call the "golden" time of 9pm Eastern Time.

There is probably some solid data out there somewhere, but it seems like 9pET is the most common time for chats to happen (at least if a great number of the people participating are in the Eastern Time zone). And trying to navigate two or three chats going on at the same time is very interesting. I know when I started my podcast (back in the day LOL), I chose to go at 9pET as well because that time seemed to capture the most people for a live podcast.

Eventually, someone, who is very creative and more devoted than me at this stuff, is just going to take the time to accumulate all the medically related twitter chats out there an put it on one website. I mean, that is something that would be really interesting to check out.

Now, do I think that there are too many chats right now? No. However, if new chats keep popping up at the rate they are now, I do predict some kind of backlash where some med social media pundit will declare twitter chats as no longer productive because we will be too saturated by them. Am I wrong? I know people will let me know.... :)

Ohio State Broadcasts Live Knee Surgery

In my twitter stream this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see my friend Ryan Squire, otherwise known as @OSUSquire on twitter, talking about a live knee surgery taking place at Ohio State University Medical Center. He even tweeted out that on of their physicians was going to try to answer some questions via twitter using the hastag #osumcmako. Great job Ohio State!

Now, certainly, this is not the first live streamed surgery ever, but it's great seeing more and more hospitals utilizing social media for live broadcasts like this. (for example, according to their twitter stream, this was the first live tweeting of a surgery in the state of Ohio)

Above, is the ustream live link (fyi, there is a pre-roll ad before you can see the actual live stream). They also put the live video on their facebook page. Hopefully, they will save their broadcast to be reviewed later by those who were not able to catch it live. Kudos OSU!

Addendum: Here is another story about this from MedCity News.

AAFP Embraces Social Media

Physician organizations, like physicians in general, have been slow to see the value of social media. Organizations like the American Academy of Family Physicians have been trying out the different social media platforms over the past few months. About a year ago, I remember being at an AAFP meeting and only being one of a few physicians utilizing twitter during a meeting.

Last month, during a major AAFP meeting, I saw a tipping point reached with many physicians utilizing social media - including members of the AAFP Board of Directors. I wrote about this in a post entitled, "Why Family Medicine Needs Social Media." A lot of people read this post. I was pleasantly surprised by this. I was wondering what was going to happen next.

Then, a few weeks ago, I saw a tweet from AAFP stating that the organization was seeking a Social Media Manager. I applaud the organization for taking this step. As the organization starts to utilize the different social media platforms, I hope that AAFP will take the next step to educate its members on its benefits. As physicians gain more knowledge about social media, hopefully, this will empower them to use social media more.

VLog: Memorial Day 2011

Just some random, rambling thoughts on this Memorial Day 2011 weekend. I'd summarize it in text, but that would remove the delivery and emotion of a video blog post. Hope all of you are doing well this holiday weekend!

FamMedRocks Ep11: Twitter Professionalism

I gotta be honest with you in that Family Medicine Rocks podcast number 11 was one of the most exhausting - not only to prepare for - but to actually do. I know and have come to know so many people on both sides of this twitter professionalism issue. What's great (and what's tragic at the same time) is that people really made passionate points of view - and in general, pretty good points all around.

The show prep included reviewing a bunch of blog posts and tweets including doctor_v (part 1 and part 2), shadowfax (part 1 and part 2), mdchat, skepticemia, angry pharmacist, residency notes, hl7standards, kevinmd, seattlemamadoc, gutcheck, healthcareinc, TBTAM - and many, many others.

The first half of the show, I review (hopefully fairly) each side of the argument. The 2nd half of the show, I made my own comments starting with how it was to initially be an anonymous blogger talking about patients (yes, I talked about patients initially). I shared my evolution to no longer being anonymous.

The video above is the last 10 minutes of the show where I challenge the medical social media community on some issues. I won't write them here, because the video shows my emotion on these points better than these text words. Thanks to DrSnit for the pleasant early review of the show. You can download and/or listen to the show on the link below. Have a great Memorial Day weekend everybody!

 

Click to listen Or Right click to download

Twitter Professionalism on FamMedRocks Podcast

What an interesting week in the medicine twittersphere and blogosphere! In an exclusive club like physicians, politicians, and, say, Tour De France riders - people in these groups don't like to call each other out. It's kind of a like a unspoken "code" that is out there. However, when one peer goes after another peer - like Netanyahu vs Obama - or Tyler Hamilton vs Lance Armstrong - or, in this case @Doctor_V vs @Mommy_Doctor - this is where things get really interesting.

If you didn't already hear, there was a post this week on 33Charts called "Unprofessional Physician Behavior on Twitter." Now, the message behind this post is nothing new - it is unprofessional to share patient information on social media. Now, this post was particularly interesting in that one physician called out another physician on specific tweets.

The post itself was ok, but what fascinated me was the response that has been happening in the days following - this includes over 100 comments on that particular post, numerous blog posts, and tons of twitter chatter. The issue has gone beyond what the post was to what seems like groups of twitterers taking sides and taking personal shots on social media.

I hope you can join me this week for Family Medicine Rocks Podcast 11 on Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 9pm Eastern Daylight Time on BlogTalkRadio in which I will review the post, analyze the reaction/fallout, and try to make some predictions on what this means to the physician social media community moving forward. (Also check out the video post above)

Will certain people gain or lose social media reputation following this incident? Will this divide the physician community beyond repair? Or will an incident like this, in some strange way, make the community stronger as we move ahead? For people new to the show, there will also be a live chat room to talk during the show. Even if you cannot join live, you can always download the show later on the archived podcast. Hope you can join me for this intriguing show this week!

Social Media Burnout

The video above is a video commentary I did yesterday. I don't know about you, but it was a busy work week for me. And since social media is not my business model, the primary job and life in general sometimes gets in the way of other things like social media.

I do feel like kind of a slacker for not posting a lot of content this week. I really feel bad because I still have a lot of great content to post which was recorded last weekend. Oh well, hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to put that up. But, I'm on call this weekend, so that may push things back further.

Sorry for the whining, but I wonder if other people out there in the social media sphere goes through this same stuff of having it be a challenge to balance all of this stuff. How do you deal with things like social media fatigue and sometimes social media burnout? I'm curious....

FamilyDocWonk on FamMedRocks Podcast

Thanks to Dr. Jay Lee for being a guest on Family Medicine Rocks Podcast 10. This interview was recorded last weekend while he was at the California Academy of Family Physicians Annual Scientific Assembly. We talked about that meeting, the premiere of the Family Medicine Revolution website, the recent AAFP NCSC meeting, and the recent AAFP Family Medicine Congressional Conference.

A peculiar thing happened during last night's live broadcast. I had some technical difficulties and I had to end the show early. At the end of the video above, you see me wonder and get frustrated that the pre-recorded audio clips were not there for me to play. What happened is that I had to add the clips in post production. Feel free to listen to the show below, or you can even download the show to your computer and listen anytime. Have a great weekend everybody!

Click to listen to episode or right-click to download file

HybridMedic On FamMedRocks Podcast

Russell Stine is a paramedic and firefighter who lives in the Memphis, TN area. He contacted me a few weeks ago to share with me that his family physician saved his life by finding his testicular cancer that is currently under treatment. He shares this story in a blog post entitled, "My Week As A Patient."

I had been having pain in my left testicle for about a month or so, and it started just before I went to go play airsoft in Ohio. After about two weeks the pain went away, and I thought nothing more of it.

Well Monday of this week it began hurting more, and eventually became pretty unbearable, so I went to the family practice physician down the street from my house. She did the entire physical exam on me, and really focused on what was wrong.

She didn’t know EXACTLY was the bumps and the hardening was all about, so I was referred to a urologist. I was also scheduled for an ultrasound that afternoon. The report they got back from that test said that I have 3 large neoplasms on the left side, as well as emlarged vessels. The doctor scheduled my urology appointment for Thursday of the same week. Tuesday went by rather slow, as the pain was not as bad as Monday but noticeable.

Russell is known as @HybridMedic on twitter and I got to meet him in person earlier this year in Baltimore at the EMS Today conference. He reached out to me on twitter and wanted to let me know that he wanted to share his story with my audience. I have heard from many in the Family Medicine community that for even more effective communication and who better to tell the story of Family Medicine, then a patient.

So, I hope you're able to join us on Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 9pm Eastern Daylight Time for Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Number 9 which will be live on BlogTalkRadio. For those new to the show, there will be a live chat room for you to participate. And, if you cannot listen live, you can always download the archived podcast later via iTunes. Also check out the video promo for the show above. (Yes, I know youtube is down as I post this. But, hopefully, it will be back up soon...)

This Week In FamMed & Social Media

The above video commentary are some thoughts about the past week (actually the past couple of weeks since this month started) when it comes to the intersection of Family Medicine and Social Media. I cannot believe that only a couple of weeks ago, we were in New Orleans doing a bunch of social media projects at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine meeting.

Then, only week ago was the Kansas City meetings of the AAFP Annual Leadership Forum and National Conference of Special Constituencies. Just a few days ago in DC was the AAFP Family Medicine Congressional Conference. And this upcoming weekend are the state academy meetings of California & Washington.

What all these meetings have in common are their use of social media - not only that - but also the rising popularity of the use of twitter and other platforms at these Family Medicine meetings. I'm very happy with that and I hope that this trend continues. Are you in Family Medicine and utilize social media in some way, leave me a comment below. I'd like to know about it.

As a closing point, I received the following comment from Rolf Olsen on a previous post called "Why Family Medicine Needs Social Media." I think it is the next step in the use of social media in our specialty:

On reading the brief blurb that brought me to this blog post, I actually thought it would be about communicating about Family Medicine with patients and the general public.  That's my particular prejudice and perspective.  I'm not a physician, I work in health care communicaton, but I would very much like to see more consumer/patient-oriented  information about all of primary care. Is there a diffence in care for children from a pediatrician vs. a family medicine doc?  What the heck does 'Internal Medicine' mean, and does care from an internist differ from care for an adult from a family medicine doc?  And while we're on the topic, what's the difference between an intern and an internist?  Maybe you get my point. It's great if you family medicine practitioners use social media to communicate amongst yourselves, to keep current and stay in touch.  But in the evolving realm of primary care, more needs to be done to help consumers understand and make informed choices in a critical realm of life.

Check out my response and I encourage you to respond to this comment as well on this previous post. Our patients and the public want us to communicate with the using social media. There is no way we can communicate in this manner - until we learn the social media tools to communicate amongst ourselves. So, I challenge the Family Medicine community to continue to learn and to become familiar with these tools. When we do that, we can take the next step in reaching out to communicate with our patients and with the public about what we do and how to differentiate ourselves from others.