What It's Like To Date A Medical Student

Cute video from Buzzfeed. Good stuff...

Thanks David Letterman

I just watched the final Late Show with David Letterman. This final week of shows, really made me think about the final week of shows of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. These two gentlemen have shaped by sense of humor for almost my entire 43 years of life. And, they really sparked by dream to become a talk show host like them. With my little podcast and youtube channel, I keep pretending.

So many memories going through my head right now from junior high, high school, college, and all the way through today. Memories of watching the show with my friends, and trying to recreate those jokes and imagining a live studio audience laughing along. I'm going to have to watch that last segment again with all the images of the Dave show through the years. Thanks Dave for all the great years of laughs. He closed out his show with these simple words:

"Thank You and Goodnight..."

My Apple Watch Review

As I write this review, I've had the Apple Watch for two weeks. The photo above was taken my first morning with the watch, when I really didn't know what I was doing yet. I know there has been a lot of reviews out there already, but many of my friends wanted me to write this from my point of view. Spoiler Alert: There will be nothing in this essay that you haven't already read elsewhere. I'll be breaking things down in the following sections below.

My Pre-Watch World:

• No, I have never worn a smart watch before. Some of my friends checked out products like the pebble watch, but not me. In fact, I'm not really a watch or jewelry person in general.
• Yes, many would classify me as an "Apple Fanboy." I had every intention of purchasing this product sight unseen. I watched each Apple keynote previewing the watch and I looked at them again before I ordered the watch.
• Day of Preorder: I woke up at 2:55am on April 10, 2015. I read online that the website would probably be too busy, and to use the Apple Store app as an alternative to order. This was true, and I ordered the watch at around 3:08am.
• Which Watch? I knew that I wanted the 42mm size and the milanese loop band. I went back and forth between the aluminum case (sport watch) and the stainless steel case. I went with the latter.
• Waiting for the Watch: I really thought that I was going to receive the watch on the first day of shipment which was April 24, mainly because I wanted to be wearing the watch for a conference the next week. I received the watch 10 days later. However, I was so excited when I received the e-mail heads-up that the watch was shipping.

Unboxing the Watch:

• Many of my friends had the watch delivered to their work. I recommend NOT opening it at work. The unboxing experience itself is so much fun, I'd leave this for home.
• There have been so many unboxing videos out there, but I recommend this one from our pal Brandice to check out before you unbox your own watch.
• The most interesting part of the unboxing process is the pairing of your watch with your iPhone. The watch will pull over the available apps from your phone to give you a baseline batch of apps to play with. Wouldn't be a bad idea to go to the iTunes store now and download new & different iPhone apps that also have watch apps in preparation for your unboxing.
• Watch Contacts: Using the watch app on the phone, you can designate up to nine priority contacts on your watch. You want to make sure some of those contacts also have the watch, because you'll be able to try out fun communication messages like sending your heartbeat, tap, or sketch.

You have the watch, now what?

• Demoing the Watch to Friends: After your friends want to see it, they'll ask you, "Make it do something." For me, the best ways to demo the watch, was to be a remote control to play music on iPhone, and to be a remote control to take pictures on iPhone.
• Change the watch face: One of the first things I tried to figure out was how to change the watch face. I really wanted to see the Mickey Mouse watch face LOL. Check out this Macworld UK article.
• Battery Life: Of course, when you first start playing with your watch, you will go through battery quickly. After that, I have never had problems with battery life. I charge the battery at night along side my iPhone. Don't worry about battery life for routine use.

Watch For Fitness:

• I've used other wearables in the past, like the fitbit, so I was curious about how Apple Watch would be with fitness tracking.
• The Activity Rings above on the Activity App are still confusing to me. I never really figured them out. Sure, it tells, me to stand every hour, but other than that, I haven't gotten that much out of it.
• The Workout app was a little more interesting. You'll see some screen shots below. I enjoyed the "Avg heart rate" data on the watch. Yes, I know other devices can do this too, but, for me, I thought it was helpful. The third picture below is from the Walkmeter app, which I use for cycling. Yes, I use both the watch Workout app and Walkmeter on iPhone.

The Bottom Line on Apple Watch:

• Many of the anti-Apple people out there will be enjoying this part of my review.
• Lower your expectations for Apple Watch: Remember your first positive experience with an iPhone? How things all seemed to come together? There is no such experience and feeling here. The watch tells time. You get some text messages. The fitness functions are adequate for me. And that's it (at least for now).
• The "Wow" Factor wears off quickly: It was really fun for the first few days experimenting with the apps. But other than that, I was going back to my phone for a lot of my daily work flow and functionality.
• Will I wear Apple Watch one month or six months from now? I will definitely keep wearing the watch for the rest of this month. Maybe with yesterday's software upgrade, and future upgrades, there will be more functionality. Will I still be wearing Apple Watch in 6 months? Not sure yet.
• Do I regret buying it and Will I buy the next one? I absolutely have no regrets. I'm not an Early Adopter, I'm an Early Believer in this product. I know that I'm a part of the initial "test" group of users on how this works. As with all their products, Apple set the bar so high on expectations, that tech press and public opinion enjoy saying negative things about these products. I will absolutely purchase the next generation. I will always enjoy technology. It's not perfect the first time around, but it's still fun exploring and seeing how we can use technology to better our lives!

World Family Doctor Day 2015

World Family Doctor Day was first declared by the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) in 2010 and it has become a day to highlight the role and contribution of family doctors in health care systems around the world.

The event has gained momentum globally each year and it is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the central role of our speciality in the delivery of personal, comprehensive and continuing health care for all our patients.

In addition to these logos from the WONCA organization, I also invite you to check out the video below from The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners including their "I Chose GP because" photo campaign. Another video below are words from Michael Kidd, President of WONCA. Happy World Family Doctor Day to all my friends and colleagues around the world!

Tuesday May 19 is World Family Doctor Day. To celebrate and share the incredible work of GPs, the RACGP is running a social media campaign that asks GPs to state why they chose general practice as a career, using the dedicated hashtag #IchoseGP.

World Family Doctor day message from Michael Kidd, President of the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA)

Family physicians have the skills and training to practice in a variety of settings around the world. Join Kyle Hoedebecke, MD, co-founder of the North American young doctors' movement Polaris, to learn why family medicine is the perfect fit for students interested in global health.

Dr. Wanda Filer on Dr. Oz Show

Dr. Wanda Filer, President-Elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), made an appearance for a seven minute interview on the May 14, 2015 edition of The Doctor Oz Show. Yes, That Dr. Oz. By now, I don't have to name all the controversies that is associated with this guy. Why would a leader of a major physician organization choose to make an appearance here? Dr. Filer explains that to me in a podcast interview on the Mike Sevilla Radio Program Episode 335 that you can download here, or listen to it in the player above. In addition, Dr. Filer wrote an essay called "Face-to-Face with Dr. Oz: Benefits of Touting Family Medicine Outweigh Risks." 

At the beginning of our podcast chat, Dr. Filer states that she has known Mehmet Oz before he was the nationally known "Dr Oz" when they were both doing local television. In this 2008 article, Dr. Filer was the emcee of a charity event in which Mehmet Oz was a guest. Fast forward to 2015, and Dr. Filer was being contacted by producers from "The Dr Oz Show" to be interviewed. As she was considering the request, Dr Filer describes in the podcast, that she was contacted personally by Dr. Oz to come on the show.

She told him during that phone call, "I need you to understand that many of our members, Family Physicians of this country, spend a lot of our time trying to 'undo' some of the messages that you deliver. And, they are not sure why I would want to do this." She was also concerned about product endorsements and potential other guests on the show. "We got agreements from them that they won't talk about any products during the show, and they gave us the opportunity to look at the entire lineup (of guests), and the even told me that what I do is a balance between entertainment and health education, and sometimes we tip too far" 

The theme of the May 14, 2015 show had to do with Fear and how people should face their fear, including the Fear of seeing the doctor. Dr. Filer made three points during her seven minute segment about what to know when seeing your physician. The first point was to "Know Your Family History," especially about your first degree relatives.  Dr. Filer's second point during the segment was about medications. "Not only bringing all your prescription medications to your visit, but also bringing any kind of nutritional supplements with you to your doctor's visit." Her final point was finding a physician who is your "usual point of care," namely a Family Physician. 

So, why would Dr. Filer make an appearance on The Doctor Oz Show, given the controversy that it could create? During the podcast, Dr. Filer stated, "I have to be honest in that I also had mixed feelings. But, the part of me that understands the power of the media to get our message out would be a great opportunity. This is the number one daytime talk show with an audience of 2 million people every day. And, my suspicion is that many of that audience don't understand about the value of Family Medicine and Primary Care in this country. What a great opportunity to tell our story." 

From my point of view, I also admit that when Dr. Filer first told me of this interview, my anxiety level went up, and I was concerned about what other people may say. In my opinion, she is taking a risk in going on this show. But, after watching this segment on television, and after recording this podcast, I'm convinced that sometimes you have to "think outside the box" to reach your goal, and this goal is to tell the Family Medicine and Primary Care story to as many people as you can. I support Dr. Filer in this effort, and I hope my friends and colleagues do as well. For those interested, I'll be on a Google Hangout tonight at 9pET talking about this and my thoughts on it.

In closing of the podcast, Dr. Filer stated, "I would ask people to watch the segment before rushing to an opinion (about my appearance there)." I agree with that. Have an open mind, watch the television segment, listen to this podcast, and read her words at the AAFP Leader Voices Blog, before making your final judgement. In addition, watch the video below which includes an educational segment by Dr. Filer including "What Is Family Medicine?" It takes tremendous courage to take action that is potentially controversial. I applaud Dr. Filer's leadership and all of us have a lot to learn from it.

What's Your #NCCLMemory

The AAFP Leadership Conference is this week in Kansas City! The two tracks are the National Conference of Constituency Leaders #AAFPNCCL and the Annual Chapter Leaders Forum #AAFPACLF. It will be the 25th anniversary of the NCCL meeting this week. Here are two videos produced by our pal Dr. Kim Yu about their memories of the meeting #NCCLMemory

Hearing from Dr. Kevin Wang on one of his favorite NCCL memories!

Reminiscing on previous NCSCs and looking forward to next week's National Conference for Constituency Leaders! #aafpnccl

Health Is Primary: North Carolina

The Health Is Primary campaign proudly expresses the values of Family Medicine, Team Based Care, and other Primary Care fundamentals. On Thursday, April 16, 2015, the campaign arrived in Raleigh, North Carolina to feature that state's tremendous work in exhibiting these ideals.

What follows below are two videos produced by the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians. The first one talks about team based care, and the second one talks about how one Family Physician whose passion was to improve the health of North Carolina's firefighters. At the bottom of this post are featured tweets from the event. Enjoy!

Family physician-led, team-based primary care improves both quality of patient care, patient outcomes and helps prevent over utilization of scarce health care resources - especially in Rural N.C.

Did you know cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of U.S. firefighters? With roughly 60,000 firefighters in North Carolina, family physician Dr. Tom White decided he could do something about this in his community.

Welcome 2015 YouToo Social Media Conference Attendees

Welcome to those of you who are visiting my site because of my participation at the 2015 YouToo Social Media Conference on the campus of Kent State University. Thanks to my long time social media friend Luke Armour for the invitation. He is assistant professor at Kent State University in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I remember meeting Luke all the way back at Podcamp Ohio 2008.

I'm excited to be on a Medicine & Social Media Panel with our pal Dr Vivian von Gruenigen (@DoctorViv) who is a social media superstar with the creation of the Summa Flourish blog, which is a leading voice on Women's Health. This panel will be moderated by Dino Baskovic, digital media consultant (@professordino). You can follow the conference on twitter through the hashtag #YouToo2015

I'm hoping to showcase the HealthCare Social Media community to this conference. I'm bringing a lot of stories with me along with a list of people and resources to share during my panel. If you've found my website because of the conference, feel free to look around my site, and to leave comments and questions at the "Contact" link above.

I'm also hoping to do some crazy stuff like live video streaming from the stage using something like Meerkat or Periscope. In addition, I'm going to try to answer your questions and interact with all of you on twitter during the panel. In looking at the youtoo conference youtube page, it looks like there will be a live twitter stream that can be seen at the front of the meeting room. That should be fun! Thanks again for stopping by my website!

Testimonials from students and professors who have attended the YouToo Social Media conference in the past answer the question "why should I attend YouToo?" How about professional networking, cutting-edge social media, a student-only session with Keynote speaker Gini Dietrich, lunch and a networking dessert? You're in luck. We have them all.

Apple ResearchKit: A Doctor's View

The most important announcement today from Apple WAS NOT the Apple Watch. In my opinion,  iPhone, Apple HealthKit, and Apple ResearchKit will revolutionize medical research in ways that we don't even understand yet.

During the announcement, the challenges of medical research were described. First, it's difficult to recruit research subjects. Secondly, when when you find research subjects, it is difficult to gather comprehensive data - only snapshots in time. Finally, research subjects only give information (one way communication), and often do not hear back from the research team. (Video above from The Verge)

With 700 million iPhones sold already, Apple saw an opportunity to assist the medical research community with the creation of Apple ResearchKit. ResearchKit is a software framework made specifically for medical research. With ResearchKit, universities and medical institutions hope to accumulate lots of data, more accurate data, and interact with research subjects in ways that have never been done before.

There are already five Apple ResearchKit Apps that were released today:

• Parkinsons Disease: App is called "mPower"; University of Rochester, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Sage Bionetworks
• Diabetes: App is called "GlucoSuccess"; Massachusetts General Hospital
• Heart Disease: App is called "MyHeart Counts"; Stanford Medicine, University of Oxford
• Asthma: App is called "Asthma Health"; Mount Siani Hospital; Weill Cornell Medical College
• Breast Cancer: App is called "Share The Journey"; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, UCLA School of Public Health, Penn Medicine, Sage Bionetworks

During this presentation, Apple addressed patient privacy: "You decide whether to participate. You decide how the data is shared. Apple will not see your data."

Skeptics to this technology have also raised concerns, like in a readwrite article entitled, "Apple's ResearchKit Is A Nice Idea, But It's Built On Sand." It states that companies are already data mining apps like MyFitnessPal, and how can we trust Apple will not do the same. This tech industry article also states that the present Apple HealthKit software is "horribly buggy" that it doesn't "even come close to our expectations for Apple products."

My take? Well, I think that iPhone, HealthKit, and ResearchKit are important in three ways:

• Moves Medical Research Closer To The Mainstream: Apple has an uncanny way of moving products and ideas from the edge, to mainstream. What mp3 player were you using before iPod? What phone were you using before iPhone? And, are you even wearing a watch right now?
• The Acceleration Of The Research Cycle: Especially those in the medical industry know how painfully long it takes from the idea for a research project to its completion - sometimes many years. If ResearchKit delivers on its promise, better treatments will come to market faster, and that is better for everyone.
• Engaged Patients plus Interactive Medical Teams equals Better Medicine: What everyone is looking for is better communication between patients, families, and the medical team. Imagine the synergy that will be created with the right app technology, engaged patients, and interactive medical teams. Just mind blowing.

I'm excited about the potential of iPhone, HealthKit, and ResearchKit. ResearchKit will be available next month. If you haven't downloaded the five apps, they are available now. So check them out. The potential here is limitless...

Learn about ResearchKit, an open source software framework that makes it easy for researchers and developers to create apps that could revolutionize medical studies, potentially transforming medicine forever. http://apple.co/researchkit

2015 Ten State Conference Day Two

This post shares some pics from Day Two of the Ten State Family Medicine Leadership conference. Topics for Day Two include Funding for Graduate Medical Education and Physician Burnout. In the afternoon, was the first ever event based on the television show "Shark Tank" in which state chapters pitch an idea to potential funders. Following the educational program, some attendees went to the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL game. What a successful event. Thanks to the staff of the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians for planning a great weekend!