• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Physicians

Doctors and the Fantasy of Access

June 29, 2017 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: < 1 minutes

When I talk to doctors about social media everyone asks about access. Access to the doctor has increased over the years.

First it was the telephone.

Then it was the pager

After that was the car phone, the cell phone, and the smart phone.

Then it was email and MyChart.

A long time ago at the dawn of the social age, Wes Fisher called this emerging phenomenon ‘time creep’ (I can’t find a link but he definitely described this). His point was that the more tools we all have, the more accessible we are.

Because in the mid-2000’s we thought social would be the ultimate connector. All access all the time. But the doctors never really showed up. And privacy laws put a wet blanket on the whole lets-talk-about-my-fistula-on-Twitter thing.

Access is good. But too much access may not be a good thing. Be it on social or by phone. I don’t want to talk to my neurologist after her second glass of Pinot Noir on Saturday night.

This is the fantasy of access. We want to believe that our doctor’s always there at the end of the line. Ready and waiting. But doctors shouldn’t be accessible to their patients all the time. In order to be our best our lives demand other things.

It’s what’s best for the patients.

Related Articles

  • Physician Access and Time Creep
  • Beware Invisible Doctors
  • Doctors and the Google Threat

Related Articles

  • Physician Access and Time Creep
  • Beware Invisible Doctors
  • Doctors and the Google Threat

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

100,000 Connected Lemmings

Reactive and Creative Spaces

Context Collapse and the Public Physician

Yes, Doctor

The Case for New Physician Literacies in the Digital Age

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy