Presentation on Social Media Given at AAO-HNS Meeting in Vancouver, BC

It was with great honor and pleasure that I was asked by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery to co-present a 90 minute long mini-seminar on social media in medicine on October 2, 2013 in Vancouver, BC.

Dr. Wendy Stern (Vice Chair - Public Relations Committee of the Board of Governors of the American Academy of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery) along with Dr. John Carter (AAO-HNS Section for Residents and Fellows) organized this talk coordinating 4 speakers including:

• Dr. Lawrence Simon (Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University) providing an overview of social media and its pervasiveness
• Myself from the view of a private practice
• Dr. Julie Wei (Division Chief at Nemours Childrens Hospital in Orlando, FL) from the perspective of an academic medical practice
• Dr. Lee Eisenberg (Associate Clinical Professor at Columbia University) portraying the medical-legal pitfalls of social media

During this presentation, it was great to hear, see, and meet other otolaryngologists active in social media including @ENTinTraining, @ent_amy,@ithinkalot as well as blogger Dr. Bruce Campbell (Reflections in a Head Mirror; aka @headmirror).

One of my former mentors at Duke University, Dr. Richard Scher, was also present.

Here's a few tweets related to this event...

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How To Create a Customized Fancy Email Signature

Have you ever wondered how some people obtained those really fancy looking email signatures at the end of their emails? I've always wondered how they did that as well. And until recently, I just looked on with envy until I took the time to figure it out. Here's an image of one I created for myself:

So how did I do it?

Well, there's the free way and the not-free way.

Of course, the not-free way is perhaps the easiest way to obtain a fancy email signature. Wisestamp is perhaps the best known one. Though they have a limited free version, more customization is possible if you pay a subscription fee. The other major downside (as of 1/6/13) is that there's no support for the Mac mail.app that I use 99% of the time for emails.

Than there is the free way (or ONLY way if you are a Mac mail.app user) which is the direction I took. It takes a bit more time and effort along with some basic HTML programming knowledge, but you can make it exactly the way you want it to appear.

To understand how to create customized email signatures yourself, I introduce you to Timmy Cai who has taken the time to write a how-to blog article. He also offers a service to make one for you for a single one-time set fee rather than a subscription.

In any case, here are his how-to articles depending on what email program you use:

• Gmail
• Mac Microsoft Outlook 2011
• Mac Microsoft Outlook 2010
• Mac mail.app (OS 10.8)
• Mac mail.app (OS 10.7) 
• Mac mail.app (OS 10.6)

Enjoy!

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Is Social Media Bad for Doctors?

I was recently asked to participate as a speaker in a panel discussion on social media next year in Canada and while preparing my thoughts on this subject, I was pondering several big questions regarding the why and pitfalls of social media for healthcare professionals.

There's the obvious "WHY" a physician should participate in social media.

But perhaps even a more basic concern for a physician deciding whether to pursue social media or not is whether it may even be a bad idea.

Beyond the obvious medico-legal issues regarding private medical information (HIPAA, HITECH, etc, etc), there is perhaps an underlying fear of having their online persona hijacked by negative publicity, whether warranted or not.

In essence, as Sensei Marketing pointed out succinctly in a blog post, could social media actually create bad customers or in our case, patients???

It happened to McDonalds when their hashtag #McDStories was hijacked by a mob of angry trolls as well as real customers with negative stories.

Sensei Marketing's belief in the evils of social media was summarized quite simply:

"people deep down are bullies or at the very least indifferent to bullying."

Assuming the general populace, which includes patients, are all bullies deep down, social media allows for (borrowing from Sensei Marketing):

• No Guilt - Easy to condemn or accuse
• The Mob - If lots of people are doing it, it just makes it that much easier for an individual to justify doing it too.
• Anonymity - Being unidentifiable allows for those who ordinarily would have exercised restraint, to vocalize (or type) without fear.
• No Accountability - With anonymity, there is no repercussion or punishment 
• Streisand Effect - If an individual (or doctor) tries to combat a negative rating or comment, it just brings more attention to it. More on this effect as it pertains to physicians here.

There are already numerous doctor rating websites where patients are encouraged to critique their doctor. Doctor rating sites are also universally reviled by physicians for one reason or another.

Could social media be just another further extension of doctor rating websites, except now the physician is doing it to himself inviting another avenue for public ridicule or even attack?

The answer is yes...

BUT, a physician should not avoid social media for fear of risk. In fact, a physician should pursue social media not just for (free) marketing or informational purposes, but also to control risk! I also have a more optimistic view of human nature (we are NOT all bullies deep down).

Unlike doctor rating websites where a physician has little recourse to combat negative comments justified or not, social media CAN be controlled, shaped, and monitored by the physician.

Bullying or negative comments will occur online whether a physician likes it or not. Whether through a doctor rating website or not. Whether there is a social media presence or not.

As such, the absence of a social media presence may in fact promote physician brand negativity given there is no public competing positive voice... namely, your own.

Furthermore, even if you are a wonderful doctor without a bad word anywhere online, in this day and age... an absent presence is increasingly becoming interpreted by the public as a negative, especially when a google search, which takes into account social media presence, often decides who a patient ultimately decides to see.


Source:
Is Social Media Bad For Business? Forbes 11/11/12

Social Media is Creating Bad Customers. Sensei Marketing

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Does Social Media Advance Medical Knowledge?

According to a recent paper, the answer is absolutely!

A survey was distributed via email to a random sample of 1695 practicing physicians in the United States in March 2011 with responses from 485 physicians (28.61%). Rather than rehashing what was said, I quote from the abstract,

Overall, 117 of 485 (24.1%) of respondents used social media daily or many times daily to scan or explore medical information, whereas 69 of 485 (14.2%) contributed new information via social media on a daily basis. On a weekly basis or more, 296 of 485 (61.0%) scanned and 223 of 485 (46.0%) contributed. In terms of attitudes toward the use of social media, 279 of 485 respondents (57.5%) perceived social media to be beneficial, engaging, and a good way to get current, high-quality information. In terms of usefulness, 281 of 485 (57.9%) of respondents stated that social media enabled them to care for patients more effectively, and 291 of 485 (60.0%) stated it improved the quality of patient care they delivered. 

I should mention that this study was brought to my attention via tweet by Dr. Ves, an allergist who is an active blogger and tweeter.

How medically efficient, relevant, and useful social media is to a practicing physician utterly depends on "who" physicians follow on the variety of social media platforms whether twitter, facebook, linkedin, or blog. Even videos on YouTube.

It also depends on the willingness of physicians to than share interesting medical information they found useful with others who than in turn share with others.

Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects in getting started in medical social media is finding who to follow in the first place who is worth following for useful medical tidbits.

If you are new to medical social media, I would suggest the following to get started. I should also mention that twitter IS the best and most efficient way to get started learning from and sharing information.

KevinMD (Primary Care)
Dr. Ves (Allergist)
Dr. Wes (Cardiologist)
Skeptic Scalpel (General Surgery)

Of course, I should add myself to this list:

Fauquier ENT or Dr. Chris Chang (Otolaryngology)

Reference:
Understanding the Factors That Influence the Adoption and Meaningful Use of Social Media by Physicians to Share Medical Information. J Med Internet Res 2012;14(5):e117

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How to Save Time Doing Healthcare Social Media: A Primer for Physicians

Followers, friends, and colleagues of mine often think that I spend HOURS doing social media everyday; reading, writing, and posting to all the various social media outlets I participate in including Blog (the one you are reading), Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Beyond writing blog posts which does take time... I probably spend about 30 minutes daily reading and sharing. My reading lists typically is from customized Twitter lists I have created following users I find particularly interesting and helpful for my purposes to gain ideas to write about as well as share information that I feel may be of interest to my own followers, mainly on Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribing to RSS feeds can also be used, but I find customized twitter lists easier.

And I automate nearly everything when it comes to sharing to save time.

Here are my workhorse applications I use to save me time: Hootsuite, IFTTT, and bufferapp.

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Hootsuite

Rather than using Twitter whose interface I find clunky and inefficient, I use Hootsuite which combines all my customized Twitter lists as well as my other social media accounts all onto one concise, clean, and efficient web interface. They also have an iPhone and iPad app.

Any tweets or shared links I encounter, I can easily post to any other social media account all automatically from within Hootsuite so I don't waste time going to each individual websites for posting purposes.

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IFTTT

I also extensively use a service from  IFTTT (IF This, Than That) which allows for easy-to-create macros that automatically creates a customized action whenever I do some action. For example, I created a macro (known as recipe in IFTTT) whereby whenever I post something on twitter, IFTTT will automatically repost on LinkedIn... instantly and invisibly. You can create as many macros (recipes) as you want. Automatic responses can occur to over 47 social media accounts (Blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, instapaper, email, tumblr, yammer, etc)

So theoretically, you can post once on twitter... and IFTTT will automatically repost the same information on all the other social media services instantly.

Of course, IFTTT can do more than just repost, but that's what I mainly use it for.

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bufferapp

Lastly, I use bufferapp. This nifty website will send out tweets at designated times that is user-specified. All the user has to do is "fill" the bufferapp bucket with the information you want tweeted.

So monthly, I will fill the bucket with up to 30 tweets I want sent out twice per day during business hours when tweets typically are noticed.

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Dr. Chang on Front-Page News

Dr. Chris Chang made the front page news of today's newspaper Fauquier Times-Democrat for his social media efforts. Click on the image to enlarge the article.

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Fauquier ENT Reaches 5 Million Web Visits

It is with some amazement that a certain milestone was reached this past week...

Fauquier ENT's online presence received over 5,000,000 web visits since first coming into existence in 2004. This number includes practice website and blog.

There has been exponential growth year over year with daily web visits now averaging close to 8,000 hits per day with some occasional peak days exceeding 10,000 views.

Our YouTube channel has done even better on its own with over a QUARTER BILLION VIEWS since we first established it in 2007. As of today, our videos have collectively received over 228 million views, averaging 45,000 views per day.

Thanks for all the online support!

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