If you get sick over the winter break, try tweeting at a doctor.
Dr. Philip Glick, a professor of surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology at UB and an attending surgeon at Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo, says that medical professionals have a place in social networking. He recently co-authored an article for the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons in which he supports medical professionals using the Internet to pass on accurate medical information to patients.
But Glick also wishes to reach fellow medical professionals via social networking platforms. The medical community can use social networking to communicate new ideas, insights and practices. Posting pictures and information to Twitter, personal blogs, and similar sites allows doctors to discuss medical problems and developments on a global scale.
"We are using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with each other, and, more uniquely, to connect with figureheads in science and medicine that we would otherwise have no chance of ever interacting with," said Rachel Ailotta, the president of Polity, the student government within the School of Medicine. "For instance, on Twitter, we are able to follow and join in on live international journal clubs, with members from the scientific community and medicine from all over the world directly interacting and sharing medical information."
The unique learning relationship between practicing medical professionals and medical students has been advanced and expanded through social networking. Generally, medical students in the past only had the opportunity to learn under the professors at their own universities. Social networking, though, has expanded the circle of education for today's medical students, Ailotta explained.
"A surgeon's greatest legacy is his or her trainees," Glick told the UB Reporter. "And a lot of the training consists of passing on information, lessons learned, and wisdom to the next generation. Twitter allows us to dramatically scale up our ability to do this."
Glick and Aliotta both agree that patients, too, benefit from their doctors being online.
The availability of medical information on the Internet has led to an increase in patients "self-diagnosing" with sites like WebMD. In order to communicate more effectively with these patients, doctors have gotten in on the online conversation.
"I see way too many patients who have been misinformed because of the Internet," said Cindy Messina, Dr. Glick's administrative assistant. "‘Google-ing' can definitely lead you down the wrong path. I definitely support Dr. Glick's idea of getting online and providing patients with the information they need more directly."
The presence of doctors on sites like Twitter is a relatively new trend – one that medical students and personnel hope will grow.
"The fact remains that more and more patients are seeking health care advice from the comforts of their own home by using the Web," Aliotta said. "Doctors must embrace the use of social media to some degree, or we risk being left out of some very important conversations with patients: those that help serve them better, as well as those that can prevent them from further harm."
The hope is that using the Internet to communicate directly with patients will encourage them to seek out professional advice rather than tips they can find with Google.
But because of federal regulations regarding doctor-patient confidentiality, the issue of using social media to discuss medical problems is a delicate subject. The unease many professionals are feeling can be avoided as long as doctors take necessary precautions to protect their doctor-patient confidentiality, according to Glick.
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