Last weekend in Kansas City, the American Academy of Family Physicians held their Summer Committee Cluster meetings. I'm not currently on an AAFP Committee right now, but I have some great memories of those meetings while talking with other Family Physicians about important issues for our patients. What follows below is a summary of the tweets from this past weekend using the #aafpsc hashtag. Enjoy!
Thanks again to Conrad Flick, MD for being my guest on Family Medicine Rocks Episode 262 last week. Our main topic of conversation was his essay, "Working With Others Key To Successfully Transforming Our Practices." Everyone knows that we have a broken health care system. However, physicians are sometimes uneasy about change. We had a great conversation about what he and his practice went through to change their practice.
We also talked about his Family Medicine story and his views on social media. I apologize for not having a video portion of the show available yet. I'll add that to this post when I'm able to edit it. Meanwhile, you can listen to the audio podcast below, or you can download here. We're also available on iTunes. I encourage you to "Like" the Facebook page, follow me on twitter, and check out my YouTube page. Enjoy!
I'm happy to welcome Dr. Conrad Flick to Family Medicine Rocks Episode 262 which will take place Tonight LIVE at 7pm Eastern Time on the BlogTalkRadio network. Dr. Flick is a Family Physician and a member of the AAFP Board of Directors from Cary, North Carolina.
Dr. Flick and I will be discussing his recent essay in the AAFP Leader Voices Blog: "Working With Others Key to Successfully Transforming Our Practices" which has to do with the transformation of the current model of medical practices to the Patient Centered Medical Home. Here is an excerpt from his essay...
Good partners can make all the difference when transforming a practice. For example, one of the family physicians in my practice, Andrew Drabick, MD was so concerned about the obesity problem in our community the he led our efforts to open a weight loss clinic. Many of our patients found the extra help they needed, and we added an important revenue stream.
One of my other partners, Stephen Moore, MD, is passionate about practicing family medicine, but he has little desire to be involved in the business of medicine. Stephen puts his trust in others to make sure we are running a sound business. I also love being a family physician, but I have the interest in business that my partner lacks. Together, we provide balance to a practice that has expanded three times in a little more than five years.
If you haven't already checked it out, I also invite you to check out last week's show with Dr. Reid Blackwelder talking about Advocacy, Family Medicine Residents, and medical students. I hope you can join us at 7pm Eastern Time Tonight for Family Medicine Rocks Episode 262 with Dr. Conrad Flick.
People know that I enjoy having fun at meetings in addition to covering the topics through twitter, blog posts, and other social media platforms. Below are two videos from recent meetings, where these guys were great sports when I get the video camera out. Enjoy!
Thanks so much to Michelle McNickle who included me in her article today entitled, "10 Physician To Follow On Twitter" on HealthCareIT News. She is a web content producer for the site. I was very pleasantly surprised to be Number Two on the list...
Toward the end of last month, Mike Sevilla, MD, spoke to a crowd of 100 at the Connecting Healthcare + Social Media Conference on why physicians ought to be on social media. Although multiple such outlets exist - Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn - none have appealed quite so strongly to physicians as twitter. Here are 10 physicans, in no particular order, who have mastered the art of twitter.
2. Mike Sevilla, MD - @drmikesevilla Formerly known as Dr. Anonymous, Sevilla tweets regularly and is the blogger behind FamilyMedicineRocks.com. He is known for being an advocate for physicians on social media, all while giving his followers and blog readers a behind-the-scenes look at life as a family physician. He hosts Family Medicine Rocks on Blog Talk Radio, where he reviews current industry events, news, and all things social media.
I'm honored to be part of a great group of physicians on twitter. If you're not already, follow all the physicians on this list. I'm always curious about following more great physicians on twitter. Who else should be on this list and why? Gimme some suggestions!
Case One: Meghan Vogel, from West Liberty-Salem High School (not the Salem where I'm at), shows a huge amount of sportsmanship (or sports-womans-man ship) by helping her competitor across the finish line at last weekend's state championship meet (also check out the video above)
Case Two: Audrey Bolte, Miss Ohio, says that the movie "Pretty Woman" is an example of positive portrayal of women in film. (also check out the video above). You be the judge here folks....
You know, Charlie Brown can still teach us lessons, you know. In the video above, you'll see him talk about the commercialization of the Christmas holiday. I know, what you're asking, how does this relate to twitter hashtags?
Tonight, Ryan Madanick, MD introduced the new twitter hashtag #medsm with his blog post entitled, "Introducing #medsm, a new unifying hashtag for the intersection of medicine and social media." He writes:
Therefore, #medsm is being introduced as a new umbrella hashtag for posts related specifically to healthcare and medicine topics. The #medsm hashtag could be include content with links to studies, stories about patient care, etc. The more broadly it becomes used, the more likely Twitter users will be able to identify your healthcare-specific content.
Everyone's familiar with the #hcsm hashtag which was originally defined as "healthcare communication and social media." It's true that this hashtag gets a little clogged up, and with its continued popularlity, it's getting difficult to filter through the useful information for me. And, don't get me wrong, the rest of this post is not for or against #medsm or #hcsm. Read on...
This really got me thinking of this question: Do twitter hashtags have a social media life cycle? The example that I'll use is our own #FMRevolution hashtag. Almost a year and a half ago, Dr. Jay Lee wrote this essay entitled, "#FMRevolution = Family Medicine Revolution" which clearly defined the lofty goals of the hashtag.
What has happened since then? What once started as a unique hashtag, now has moved to more of a "commericalization" of the hashtag where anyone talking about anything vaguely medical has been posting tweets marketed toward Family Docs.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining. I will still continue to use the #FMRevolution hashtag. I think that this is part of the hashtag lifecycle, or anything that starts small. The question always becomes: What happens when this idea (meaning hashtag) scales up and becomes more visible?
Be careful what you wish for, because as the hashtag gets more popular, and as more people take notice, certain individuals will see this as a marketing opportunity, with less valuable tweets in the stream, and people trying to think up new hashtags to start the hashtag life cycle all over again.
Thanks to Reid Blackwelder, MD for being my guest on Family Medicine Rocks Episode 261. We started out by chatting about how be came to find Family Medicine as his calling. I invite you to listen to his story in his own words in the video above.
We had a great discussion about mentors and Family Medicine Mentors. We then talked about his essay from the AAFP Leaders Voices Blog called, "Students, Residents: Stand Up And Make A Difference For Family Medicine." This essay also gives a shout out to the AAFP Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students meeting which will take place this year on July 26-28, 2012 in Kansas City.
At around 45 minutes into the show, there was a technical problem where, for some reason, the connection cut out, and I had to stall while Dr. Blackwelder tried to call back into the show. It's been a while since I had a technical problem like that. This is why I love live internet radio. You know if a host is good when something random like this happens. I'll let you be the judge to see how I did.
We closed our chat with talking about Social Media and Family Medicine. Dr. Blackwelder has done a great job, just in the past year, about becoming engaged in social media and encouraging other Family Docs to become familiar with social media.
As always, you can listen to the entire audio podcast in the player below. You can also download the show on the link below or here. I also encourage you to follow me on twitter, "like" the facebook page for this site, check out my youtube page, and click on over to my linked in account. Thanks so much for your support of the show!
I'm happy to welcome Dr. Reid Blackwelder to Family Medicine Rocks Episode 261 which will take place today (May 31, 2012) at 12pm Eastern Time Live on BlogTalkRadio. Dr. Blackwelder is Family Physician and a member of the AAFP Board of Directors from Kingsport, Tennessee.
Dr. Blackwelder and I will be discussing his recent essay in the AAFP Leader Voices Blog: "Students, Residents: Stand Up And Make A Difference For Family Medicine." Here is an excerpt from his essay....
Advocating for family medicine, however, is not a role just for the elected leaders of the AAFP. Everyone can play a role, particularly medical students and residents because you are our future. Each of you can take part in the discussion that is developing about the future of health care. The resulting decisions will affect how you practice medicine, regardless of specialty, and how your patients receive care.
Advocacy is not a routine part of medical school or residency training, yet one of the most important duties of a physician is to advocate. You are an advocate for your patients, your practice, your community, and your specialty. It is critical that as an advocate you are informed and active. It's never too early to get involved. Now is the time for you to find a way to be connected on a regular basis. Happily, there are many ways for you to do just that.
In addition to this essay, we're going to be talking about the impact that Social Media has had on the Family Medicine Community and the AAFP specifically. I hope that you can join us Live Today at Noon Eastern Time for Family Medicine Rocks Episode 261. See you then!
Thanks to everyone who listened to the podcast last week, Family Medicine Rocks Episode 259 where I talked about the recent Connecting Healthcare and Social Media conference in New York City. I also talked about the recently released book by Family Physician Dr. Ted Epperly called "Fractured" talking about our broken health care system.
In the video above, I made an unprecedented announcement stating that there would be three members of the AAFP Board of Directors to be making appearances on the podcast in the next few weeks. First, on Thursday, May 31, 2012 (this Thursday), at Noon Eastern Time, Reid Blackwelder, MD, will be talking about his recent essay called, "Students, Residents: Stand Up And Make A Difference For Family Medicine" on Family Medicine Rocks Episode 261.
In June, the two other third year AAFP Board Members will be on the podcast talking about their respective essays in the AAFP Leader Voices Blog. Conrad Flick, MD will be discussing his essay, "Working With Others Key To Successfully Transforming Our Practices." Laura Knobel, MD will be discussing her essay, "The Joys - And Advantages - Of Solo Practice."
Those who follow AAFP politics are keenly aware that these three individuals are also running for AAFP President-Elect. However, the target audience for these podcasts is not the Delegates who will be attending the AAFP Congress of Delegates this fall. These three individuals are ambassadors of Family Medicine and the goal of these interviews are to showcase the specialty I love to the entire American public.
I said it in the video above, but again, I'd like to thank the AAFP and the Board of Directors for the opportunity to chat with these individuals using social media. I call on my friends in the #FMRevolution to help spread the word about these interviews. I want to continue to show the Academy and the Family Medicine community that social media is a viable and a valuable way to share the story of Family Medicine to AAFP members and to the general public. Hope you can join us on Thursday!