NEJM Article Covers Physicians and Social Media

So for the past couple of months I’ve had a number of posts on social media. If you missed them, here’s a list for your reference. In them I mention a number of different social media sites and blogs that I hope you’d find interesting. (Note: you may notice that normally I embed the HTML links within the text, but this time I'm listing the URLs below the articles or sites mentioned. That's so you can cut and paste and still see the URLs in case you're wanting to use them for other references). Enjoy!

Dec 29, 2009: Information Overload
http://www.chestnet.org/accp/blog/information-overload

January 8, 2010: From Wikipedia to Medpedia
http://www.chestnet.org/accp/blog/wikipedia-medpedia

January 12, 2010: Tweets and Hashtags: Effectively Using Twitter and Twitter Search
http://www.chestnet.org/accp/blog/tweets-and-hashtags-effectively-using-...

January 29, 2010: Use Social Media: Doctor’s Orders!
http://www.chestnet.org/accp/blogs/use-social-media-doctors-orders

February 26, 2010: Updated User Statistics on Social Media, Email, and the Internet
http://www.chestnet.org/accp/blogs/updated-user-statistics-social-media-...

March 19, 2010: The Importance of Being Active in Social Media
http://www.chestnet.org/accp/blogs/importance-being-active-social-media


The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in its March 20, 2010 issue just released this article called “Socia Media and Physicians" by Bonnie Darves.
http://www.nejmjobs.org/career-resources/social-media-and-physicians.aspx

It’s a nice article that interviews a number of the top physician bloggers and mentions numerous social media tools and physician networking sites, many of which have been mentioned previously in the posts I’ve listed above, but a few that haven't. The author does a great job of hitting the key points as to why it’s important for physicians to utilize social media for their own professional growth and education, and where the value of social media may be found (hint: it depends on the individual and what's most important to them). Here’s a couple of excellent quotes from the article:

From Val Jones, MD, CEO of Better Health: “A lot of the magic in these things is in how you use them,” said Dr. Jones. “Social media is a great way to build relationships with your peers that you might not have time to build otherwise and to keep up with the latest news in your specialty.” She sees Twitter primarily as a valuable means of filtering information. “If you get enough followers and follow enough people, it’s a powerful way to immediately bring to your attention the things you’re most interested in.” Dr. Jones now follows a few hundred physicians on Twitter and has a growing cohort of followers herself.” [emphasis added by me]

The article also nicely summarizes some of the potential legal risks social media can pose, such as confidentiality issues if physicians discuss specific patient cases.

The one thing that’s missing with this article is that it does not hyperlink to any of the things that are mentioned so that the reader can immediately go to them.  So as a service to you, the reader, I’m going to be a swell blog host and provide the resource list below with links to all of the key web sites, blogs, and social media tools that are discussed in the NEJM article. So bookmark this blog post. Or better yet, save the link to your social bookmarking site management tool like Delicious!

Reference links to sites noted in the NEJM article:

BLOGS
Kevin MD: Blog by Dr. Kevin Pho
http://www.kevinmd.com

MedHelp: A Web site devoted to helping people find medical information and answers to medical questions.
http://www.medhelp.org/

Better Health: A collection of top medical blogs and other resources.
http://www.getbetterhealth.com/

Musings of a Distractible Mind: Blog by Dr. Rob Lamberts
http://distractible.org/

PHYSICIAN NETWORKING SITES
Sermo
http://www.sermo.com/

Medpedia
http://www.medpedia.com/

iMedExchange
http://www.imedexchange.com

Ozmosis
http://www.ozmosis.com

SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter
http://www.twitter.com
By the way, you can follow me on Twitter here:
http://www.twitter.com/rocketsurgery99
(yes, that’s a shameless plug)

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com
Be sure to check out the ACCP Facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-College-of-Chest-Physicians/76297...
And the CHEST Foundation Facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-CHEST-Foundation/200939955384

MySpace
http://www.myspace.com

OTHER SITES MENTIONED
MacMillan Publishing’s Quick and Dirty Tips, House Call Doctor
http://housecalldoctor.quickanddirtytips.com/

Podcasts via iTunes (you can download iTunes to any computer, Mac or PC)
http://www.apple.com/itunes/


 

About the Author

Stephen Welch

Senior Vice President, Communications
Executive Editor, CHEST

This blog, "It Ain't Rocket Surgery" is intended to help busy health-care professionals find useful online and mobile resources that will enhance their self-education and professional research efforts, or point out important topics of discussion related to online information and content. The blog's title is a Yogi Berra style mash-up of two common phrases, "it ain't brain surgery" and "it ain't rocket science". I hope it will be casual, fun, insightful, and -- most of all -- educational.

You can follow me on Twitter. 

I currently serve ACCP as the Senior Vice President of Communications, as well as the Executive Editor of CHEST, the ACCP’s flagship journal. During my 15 years here, ACCP has focused on growing and developing the editorial, technological, and business aspects of the College. We are constantly striving to make the journal and other ACCP educational content as accessible and useful to clinicians as possible.

When not at work, I like to spend time scuba diving with sharks, collecting original comic book artwork, exploring the digital world, and searching for good BBQ.

Your feedback about the blog is always appreciated. So are tips on good BBQ joints.