One of most important words in medicine may be translation. Not language translation but the digital translation of knowledge. Translation is about taking what’s in our head and converting it to something that’s retrievable. As physicians we have amazing mindshare. Our knowledge and wisdom should be converted into media that can be consumed. This ability to ... Continue Reading about Translation
My Immeasurable Digital Life
Everyone wants to put a number on social media use by physicians. Here’s the problem with graphs that cut the physician day up into neat little pieces of colorful pie. Our online and offline spaces are slowly becoming one. When I leave my Twitter client open on my desktop during an afternoon of clinic and I peek in occasionally, am I using it for 4 hours? What ... Continue Reading about My Immeasurable Digital Life
Human Bandwidth Will Never Scale to Match Clinical Supply
In his book, Too Big to Know, David Weinberger suggests that information is becoming the problem rather than the solution. There used to be a nurse practitioner in another specialty in my hospital who copied those involved in a child's care with every encounter. Anything - phone calls, routine visits, etc. The rationale was that "it's better to be too informed ... Continue Reading about Human Bandwidth Will Never Scale to Match Clinical Supply
Passion: What Hospital Blogs Should Seek
At a meeting recently a communication professional asked what skill she should look for when recruiting doctors to write for her hospital’s blog. I didn’t hesitate. ‘Passion,’ I responded. Blogging over the long-term is a slog. You capture an idea, sketch it out, write, add links and tags, basic search optimization, post, promote and hope that it makes a small ... Continue Reading about Passion: What Hospital Blogs Should Seek
Constrained Media – Engaging with Short Format Information
I’ve always suggested that people, especially doctors, should make things. They should create content. But this is a tall order and I've realized that curation, conversation and commentary (the easier, lower order ways we engage with information and the Internet) may represent lower lying fruit for my colleagues. Consumption, of course, is the easiest part of what we ... Continue Reading about Constrained Media – Engaging with Short Format Information
When the Audience Becomes the Publisher
This week 8NewsNow Las Vegas aired a segment on childhood immunizations. The segment is worth a look only as a means of showcasing how biased, poorly researched reporting can potentially influence the thinking of anxious parents. The piece opens by spontaneously entertaining the question about whether children even need immunizations and goes on to offer the ... Continue Reading about When the Audience Becomes the Publisher