By Westby G. Fisher, MD, FACC
NorthShore University HealthSystem
It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
Nowhere is this more apparent than working to get physicians to understand the potential of social media for their practice. The adoption of social media by doctors — even something as relatively simple as Twitter, is tough.
Face it: Thinking that a re-tweeting how much we want — really — more doctors on Twitter by next year is just preaching to the social media choir. After all, those on social media are already supporters. How do we get physicians who are NOT on social media to understand its potential value to them?
This is not a simple undertaking. Doctors are being forced to spend more computer screen time than they ever wanted to thanks to the mandatory documentation requirements of electronic medical records. What physician also wants to spend even more time glued to a computer screen — or cell phone — texting little tidbits to Twitter, posting pictures to Facebook, or browsing Pintrest photos?
Please.
For doctors to accept social media, they have to understand its value to them. There's only one way I know to do that: demonstrate it to them.
Those of us who are believers have to show them a well-organized RSS feed reader containing journal articles and news reports they're want to say up up to date with and likely read. We have to show them how to use social media to collaborate (in near real-time) with colleagues to write an article or crowd-source a talk. We need to show them the contacts - many who they'd recognize - you've made around the globe. Show them how they can lurk and get the information they need without having to expose themselves to any potential legal issues. We should show new graduating residents and fellows how they can stay in touch with their professors so they can continue to tap their network for answers to difficult clinical questions and get a rapid response. And if all else fails: we must show them how they can stay in touch with their kids once they leave their homes.
Then, slowly, one-by-one, a grass-root physician social media movement can begin. Otherwise, we'll just be preaching to our same old same-old physician social media circle.
Westby G. Fisher, MD, FACC is a board certified internist, cardiologist, and cardiac electrophysiologist (doctor specializing in heart rhythm disorders) practicing at NorthShore University HealthSystem in Evanston, IL, USA and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. He entered the blog-o-sphere in November, 2005. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this blog are strictly the those of the author(s) and should not be construed as the opinion(s) or policy(ies) of NorthShore University HealthSystem, nor recommendations for your care or anyone else's. Please seek professional guidance instead.
