Family Medicine & Match Day 2013

Here's why you should listen to Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Episode 298: My guest, medical student Michael B Moore, took his medical school entrance exam (MCAT) in Qatar in the middle east while serving in the US Army. Yes, really. Mike shares this story along with other pre-medical school stories during the first half of the podcast.

​If you haven't figured it out, Mike is who you would call a non-traditional student. While in the Army, he was encouraged to go to Physician Assistant school. And, if you're wondering, yes, Mike shares his thoughts on the role of mid-level providers on the patient care team.

Other topics we discussed include why he chose an osteopathic (DO) medical school ​versus an allopathic (MD) medical school, the shortcomings of medical education, and his thoughts on the match process. Our last part of the conversation talks about geeky topics like his interest in NASA tweet ups and being a TedX organizer.

In the video above, Mike shares why he believes that Family Medicine needs to embrace Social Media. Following my chat with Mike, I share some thoughts of my own Match Day years ago.​

Welcome to those of you who are visiting this website for the first time! In addition to listening to the entire audio podcast in the player below, you can also download the show here and listen anytime! I also encourage you to check out my other social media links like twitter, Facebook, itunes podcast link, linked-in, and youtube. Enjoy!​

Toughest Job In Social Media

You never hear the words "pope" and "change agent" in the same sentence, until this week with the election of Pope Francis. And, it really got me thinking, "Can one man really exhibit change in a huge organization like the Catholic Church?" Of course, time will tell, but there are many in the media and at the grassroots who are hopeful that change will happen.

If you think about it, all of us are really like this new pope. How? One of the toughest jobs in advocacy is trying to exhibit change from within an organization. For us Social Media Evangelists, the toughest crowd to convince about social media are our own professional colleagues - right DocForeman? I mean, it's easy to be a speaker at a national meeting where I am "preaching to the choir." A lot of social media is about being in your own echo chamber where the people you're speaking to already buy into your ideas.

The real challenge, which sometimes makes you controversial, is to talk negatively about your own tribe in an attempt to exhibit change. This happened to me earlier this week when I wrote a previous post, in which I made less than positive comments about my own community. When you tell people what they want to hear, there are lots of twitter retweets, facebook share, blog comments, and e-mail messages. With my post, there was very little of that. The echo chamber didn't like it, and the silence was deafening.

​I wish all the best to the new pope as he starts his new job. The toughest job in social media (as well as any change agent) is to take on your own community and your own tribe, to reform from within. It's not pretty and usually messy. But, if done right, your vision for change will come true.

Match Week 2013 & Social Media

​In about half an hour, Match Week 2013 begins. What is this? This is the annual "Super Bowl" for medical schools in which senior medical students find out where they will be continuing their medical education after medical school graduation. Today, residency programs will find out if they filled out all of their slots for next year's intern class - a stressful day for residency programs.

This week is a Celebration for Medical Education, especially for medical schools and residency programs. It's also a week where medical schools will compete for the best Social Media marketing out there. That's where it is fun for me (and for you) to watch.

The video above is from the 2012 Match Day celebration from Eastern Virginia Medical School where it is like a Talent Show competition as students find out where they matched for residency. This is a crazy video! Match Day for the medical students is Friday. So, watch twitter and facebook for all the creative videos that will happen at the med school level. My guess is that the Harlem Shake will be the Flash Mob music of choice this year.​

Best of luck to all the Medical Students and Residency programs out there as you being Match Week 2013. I hope all of you blow us away with your Social Media presentations this week!​

Primary Care's Missed Opportunity

I am just so upset right now, I could scream. Why? Because, in my humble opinion, the Family Medicine and Primary Care Communities missed a huge opportunity to start to win the "hearts and minds" of the general public - using social media.​

What am I talking about? Well, tonight, on CNN, was the Premiere of the film called "Escape Fire" which does a great job of describing our broken health care system, including rewarding the payment of procedures (current Fee For Service system)​, not emphasizing/paying for prevention, and emphasizing the use of pharmaceutical drugs instead of other non-drug treatments.

One of the great things about social media is the ability to watch something on television, and then comment on it in real time - in this case using the hashtag #RescueHealthcare. I've been monitoring the comments, and there is a lot of wrong information out there in the twitter stream.​

Here is the Missed Opportunity: Wouldn't it have been nice if the Primary Care and Family Medicine community organized to come together and hit twitter right as the Escape Fire movie started - and be advocates for Primary Care and Family Medicine. Don't get me wrong, there were people who did that, and shout out to our pals Kevin Bernstein, Kim Yu, Mark Ryan, and Ajoy Kumar holding down the fort for #FMRevolution.

But, how cool would it be for people like AAFP Board members or hearing from the Primary Care Progress organization during that twitter stream to give great evidence based health policy facts (like lots of people tweeting out things like links to Barbara Starfield's work supporting Family Medicine)? Instead, the AAFP organization only emphasized the appearance of the AAFP President on a post-film panel (for a 7 minute segment). Don't get me wrong, this is important. But, it's just another example of how much work needs to be done at the organization level to show the potential power of social media as an opinion maker just by the use of a twitter stream - like this organization did. We need to be more Proactive to tell our story!

​At the organizational level, whether it be the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, or other organizations, they always state that partnering with patients and with the general public is essential to bring about health policy and legislative change. In my opinion, a huge opportunity was missed tonight. And, hopefully, the lesson learned is this: Yes, Social Media IS a viable and an important vehicle by which to partner with patients and with the public to tell the story of Primary Care and Family Medicine to bring about health policy and legislative change!

FamMedRocksEp294: Kevin Pho Interview

​Thanks to Dr Kevin Pho, founder of KevinMD.com, for being my guest on Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Episode 294. We discussed his new book, "Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide For Physicians And Medical Practices" which is scheduled to be released in the next couple of weeks.

In the video above, Dr. Pho describes what he tells physicians and hospitals about Online Reputation and why it should be important to them. ​In addition, in our interview, Dr. Pho shares strategies on how physicians and hospitals can take control of their Online Reputation.

You can listen to the entire audio podcast in the player below, or download here and listen anytime. Welcome to those of you who are visiting this site for the first time. In addition to this site, I encourage you to check out my other social media links on twitter, facebook, iTunes for podcast, you tube, and linked-in. Enjoy!​

KevinMD On FamMedRocks Podcast

Kevin Pho, MD, founder of the KevinMD.com site, will be my guest on Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Episode 294 on Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 2:30pm Eastern Time for a live interview on BlogTalkRadio.​

The topic will be his new book "Establishing, Maintaining, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices." ​You'll see a video preview of the book below. One of the cool things of the book are the physicians who shared stories for the book. In addition, there are a great group of people who have written endorsements for the book. (Disclaimer: I wrote an endorsement for the book, which you'll see in the link above).

In the video above, you'll see a portion of an interview from about a year ago for the podcast. It was so long ago, I was still calling myself "Doctor Anonymous." HA! Hope to see you for the show this week!​

Physician Peer Support

Thanks to Dr. Vicki Rentel for being my guest on Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Episode 291 yesterday. We talked about how we miss the camaraderie of residency training and still need that physician peer support these days. We also talked about what keeps us going these days and what gets us up in the morning to continue to practice in this broken health care system. You'll see a brief video segment from the show in the video above.

You can listen to the entire audio podcast below, or you can click here and download the episode. I also encourage you to subscribe to the podcast via itunes. Check out my other social media platforms like twitter, facebook, youtube, and linked-in. Enjoy!

Identity Theft: Physician Social Media

Does social media fraud happen to physicians? Of course it does. Thanks to American Medical News for interviewing me for the article "3 Ways Doctors Can Protect Against Social Media Fraud," posted on January 21, 2013.

The most annoying thing that health care social media bloggers complain about is other people stealing their content for their own website. For example, I know of other website who have "cut and paste" word-for-word my blog posts and claiming it for their own. Some websites call it "guest posting," while I call it plagiarism. Here's my quote from the article:

"Social media identity fraud is definitely a concern to me," said Michael Sevilla, MD, a Youngstown, Ohio, family physician and social media enthusiast who founded the "Family Medicine Rocks" website and podcast. Dr. Sevilla said he has had blog content copied and reposted without his permission on other websites.

Now, I know the reality is that there is nothing that can be done. That's the downside of making your content so easily available. To completely prevent this, you put up a pay wall, or make it unsearchable on google - both not really advantageous to get the word out. Stealing of your social media content goes with the territory, so live with it, or get out.

The rest of this American Medical News article talks about physicians needing to create and claim their own social media footprint. Great quotes from our pal Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, creator of 33Charts.com, are included in this piece.

Finally, welcome to those of you who are visiting this site for the first time because of the AmMedNews article. I encourage you to check out this website along with my other social media platforms like twitter, podcast, linked-in, you tube, and others. Enjoy!

Inauguration 2013

No matter who is elected president, I always remember watching my first inauguration speech when I was in the 3rd grade. I knew I was a freak - hehe. While the other kids were having their lunch, I was watching the small television at the front of the room and trying to understand what was being said.

Today, we were so busy in the office, I did not have a chance to check out the festivities live. Four years ago, I was totally plugged in and watching every second live video streaming on the internet.

I know that this was a ceremonial and symbolic day, with not a lot of expectations on substance. The President is a great speaker, but, to me, I didn't hear a lot of inspiration there in today's speech. Sounded like he was reading a lot. I've watched all the partisans today analyze the speech along party lines.

This country has a lot of problems, and even though today was supposed to give us hope, I'm still skeptical that the political parties can find any kind of common ground. The American people have to rise up and tell Washington DC to stop playing politics and come together to actually do something - and not be in gridlock...

Tech Predictions For 2013

A few weeks ago, the Physicians Practice website asked me to make to contribute to a story called, "Top Tech Predictions for Medical Practices in 2013." I sent them a list of my predictions hoping that one would make their article.

Health mobile apps will get better: Salem, Ohio, Family Medicine Physician Mike Sevilla said he expects to see more FDA-approved smartphone apps. "AliveCor is the trailblazer in this area," he said. "With their success, I see other companies trying to get into this market. Everyone knows about the medical device market, but this digital/electronic device market is newer, and just as exciting."

My other predictions that did not make the article are the following: Crowd source funding of medical technology and HCSM projects will be seen more in 2013, especially with sites like Medstatr. In the consumer technology market, you've already seen items, from the Consumer Electronics Show, from companies like FitBit, Bodymedia, and Withings. Finally, the craziest prediction I have for 2013 is the Comeback of the Personal Health Record. Google Health is gone, and Microsoft Health Vault really hasn't caught on. But, I think that this year, there will be a new product to emerge and will finally get it right. Call me crazy, but there you go!