Has Twitter Changed? Previewing FamMedRocks Ep300

​Remember when twitter was a great place to have conversations? I invite you to join me on Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 12pm Eastern Time for Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Episode 300. My guest will be Meredith Gould: Digital Strategist, Writer, Blogger, and Founder of the Church Social Media Chat (#ChSocM).

​This landmark show was sparked by the Meredith's tweet above about two weeks ago: "Ah Twitter. I remember when public convo offered rich engagement among tweps wrestling with great questions. Now I get that via DM."

​I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. I've been active on social media since 2006 (has it been that long already?), and I remember a time when blog posts regularly received dozens of comments back and forth. Then, when twitter first started, there were these great spontaneous group type discussions out there on topics. Scheduled twitter chats have kind of replaced that, but chats are structured, and leave little room for tangential/sidebar discussions.

When people now want to have a little bit deeper discussion, I receive the twitter/facebook direct message. People send me an e-mail, or even a text to my phone - and the conversation takes place off the "public" airwaves. But why?​

​In my opinion, here are reasons why "rich engagement" has gone private:

Political Correctness prevents deep analysis: We live in a world where people focus more on being offended ​than expressing a fully thought out opinion. Sometimes truth hurts, but people hesitate to go there in the public forum, because of the fear of being labelled a "hater." So, the discussion shifts to private messages.

This hyper-partisian world leaves little room for the "middle of the road" opinion: No matter what public opinion you express, whether it is on gay marriage or who will win the Final Four, people will attempt to paint you as some kind of extremist. How has the world evolved to this? No wonder people shift to the private message.

Being taken "out of context" is no longer the exception, it is the rule: ​This kind of goes along with the reasons above. To negate your argument or to deflate your point of view, people don't take all of your statements head-on, they are selective in the arguments they make. People pick out the statements they can easily defeat or label as "extreme" and then they reason the entire opinion is null and void. 

I hope that even some of this makes sense. I'm looking forward to my live conversation with Meredith Gould on Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 12pm Eastern Time on Family Medicine Rocks Podcast Episode 300. Hope you can join us!

Previewing AAFP NCSC 2013

​Family Medicine leadership is very important to me, as I have talked about on this website in the past. Later this month will be one of the most important Fam Med leadership meetings of the entire year: The National Conference of Special Constituencies organized by the American Academy of Family Physicians. This meeting will take place from April 25-27, 2013 in Kansas City.

In the videos below, you'll see exciting and fun promotions for this year's meeting. Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend this year, but I know that I'll be able to share in the action through the (probable) twitter hashtag #aafpncsc. Shout out to all my friends headed out to NCSC 2013!

Andy Ihnatko: "I'm A Narcissist In Private" HA!

Andy Ihnatko is a tech journalist who is a writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-host of the MacBreak Weekly podcast. The interview above is a type of "up close and personal" chat that is an interesting comparison of a person's public persona versus the person behind the mask.

When I started in social media, it was important for me to be anonymous. But, then I realized that to make more of an impact, I had to be non-anonymous. In watching this interview above, I have learned that you can actually keep some things private, and there are ways to do that.​

One of the cool things about Andy is that he's a guy who has done a lot of deep thinking about a lot of things, and that is apparent in the interview above when it comes to technology, staying private in social media, and being a writer.​

I have always admired good writers, because of why they are good writers. Good writers are able to describe their point of view and opinion in ways that everyone can understand. Effective ways to communicate has always been fascinating to me.​

The funniest quote in the interview was having to do with not exposing your entire life to social media. It's been talked about in the past that a lot of people in social media (including me) has to be a little bit of a narcissist to talk about things like what you had for breakfast. In the quote above, Andy does admit to be a narcissist, but only in private (around 28 minutes into the interview)​

I apologize if this post seems boring, but I've been trying to get back into the habit of blog writing again. I remember when ​I started blogging. i wrote pretty much everyday. And it took me a while to get into a groove, and eventually, my writing became actually decent. Hopefully, I'll get there again. I just have to get back writing on a regular basis again...

Did Eric Topol Jump The Shark?

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​Is it the goal of social media docs to go mainstream? On twitter yesterday and today, I kept seeing posts that rockstar Dr. Eric Topol from Scripps Health was going to be a guest on the Colbert Report. At first, I thought, "Well, that's cool." Then as I continued to think about it, I asked, "Will this appearance really move the needle at all? Did Eric Topol jump the shark?"

All the time, I get questions from docs starting out in social media, "Hey, Mike, how can I get more twitter followers? How can I get more people to visit my website? Do you know anyone in national TV to help get the word out about me?" Is getting popular to just get popular a real goal? That's not medicine. That's not making a difference for patients. That's celebrity.​

​Now, don't get me wrong. I'm probably going to sound like a hypocrite here, but I think what Eric Topol is doing is great, and, of course, I would not turn down an invite on Colbert (not that I would ever get that opportunity).

But, for docs doing social media or who want to do social media, I remind you to not to get caught up in getting famous or being a celebrity. It won't happen overnight. Topol has been doing this type of education & media for a long time, and he deserves all the success he has. But for those of us who are not him, I remind you to remember what's  professionally important, and that's your patients. Focus on that and however you define success will be right around the corner.​

Thanks to Hover & Squarespace

So, I've been in the midst of changing over my domain name company to Hover.com from this other company. And. man, it's been tough to do this thing myself. Sheesh.​

Just wanted to give a big shout out both to Squarespace and to Hover customer service for tolerating my questions about how to switch domain companies and now to link to this Squarespace blog. I'll be changing over more domains to Hover. Thanks Squarespace & Hover!​

FamMedRocks Google Hangout

​So, if you know me, you know I'm not afraid to fail. HA! I've never done a Google Hangout, until tonight! I will be joined by my pals and Family Physicians - Dr. Gerry Tolbert and Dr. Kim Yu. We're going to have a discussion on a variety of topics including the following:

1. Why Family Medicine Needs To Embrace Social Media
2. ​Today's Politico Health Care Event talking about Scope of Practice
3. ​Last week's Match Day 2013 Results and What It Means
4. The recent broadcasts of the Escape Fire film on CNN
5. Whatever else comes up

Factoring in technical difficulties, the Family Medicine Rocks Google Hangout should be up and running around 9pm Eastern Time at this link. Don't worry, I'll record the thing and make it available on my youtube page.

Yes, it would be helpful if you're already on Google+ so that you have the ability to leave comments and make fun of us. If this works, then I may have other Google Hangouts on Family Medicine and Primary Care topics. We'll see what happens!​

Politico: Health Care Scope Of Practice Event

Politico will be holding a Health Care Breakfast Briefing tomorrow, March 19, 2013 beginning at 8am Eastern TIme. The topic will be "Defining The Scope Of Practice." You can watch the free live video stream at this link.

The panelists include the following:​ Wanda Filer, MD (AAFP Board of Directors), Angela Golden, DNP (President of American Association of Nurse Practitioners), and Donna Shalala (former secretary of HHS).

There will definitely be verbal fireworks between the AAFP and the AANP representatives that started with the AAFP Report "Primary Care For the 21st Century" stating that Independent Practice NPs "threatens to splinter care and undermine PCMH." Of course, the AANP disagreed with this report and released their own statement. There have been other opinions about this disagreement on Modern Healthcare and KevinMD. In addition, the current AAFP President Elect wrote this letter to a recent Bloomberg News Article. 

Not only will there be strong opinions on stage, but also on social media as well. A recent example of this was the twitter stream during the live broadcasts of the Escape Fire film on CNN using the #RescueHealthcare hashtag. As I stated in a previous post, I believe that Family Medicine and Primary Care missed an opportunity to be proactive in portraying a positive message for our specialty.

I hope that the discussion does not degrade to personal or professional attacks on stage and on social media. Primary care physicians and primary care nurses must both build their workforces. We can't build one at the expense of the other. The Patient Centered Medical Home focuses on tailoring care to the patient by deploying a team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, sub specialists, and any other health professional who work together to meet the patient's needs.​

So, again, I'm challenging the Family Medicine community to not only tune in tomorrow morning at 8am for the live video stream, but also I challenge the Family Medicine community to be proactive and participate on twitter using the #ProHCBB hashtag in addition to #AAFP to help spread the message. Will #FMRevolution rise to the occasion? We'll see...

Match Day 2013 Reflections

Match Day 2013 ​was two days ago, and I've had a couple days to reflect to come up with some kind of meaning, if anything, to those events. Here are some random thoughts.

Memories of my own Match Day: Even though it's been 15 years since my own Match Day, as a physician, I still have this excitement for the coming of this particular day. I can definitely relate to what these medical students are going through. Best of luck to all the future graduates!

Good day for Primary Care: Even though there were more US medical students matched in Family Medicine versus one year ago, there was a 3.4 percent decrease versus 2012. The AAFP President is hopeful, but states that "Our Work Is Far From Finished." I would agree with that assessment.

Kudos To @TheNRMP twitter account: Whomever is behind the NRMP twitter account is doing a great job. I checked them out even a few days before Match Day. I enjoyed how they responded to students and to organizations when tweeting about Match related activities. And on Match Day itself, the account was sending congratulations and encouraging social media collaborations. Well done!

The Last Fun Match Day on Social Media: I was in my office hours the afternoon of Match Day, and it was great to follow. To me, it felt like New Year's Eve/Day in that you could see when the medical schools were opening their Match Day envelopes, almost like by time zone. And then you would see the excitement on twitter, and see the pics that were being shared. Unfortunately, I think this will be the last year of that. As Match Day was winding down on twitter, I could see some corporations and medical industry organizations invading some of the hashtags - "Congratulations to those who matched, and don't forget about our medically related product." I predict that you'll see that more next year, and that's sad...

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.