This tweet came floating down my Twitter stream yesterday.  Allison, a medical student, remarked on an impending podcast interview.  As quickly as her tweet appeared in my stream it was gone.  There was a reply by me as well as another premedical student that I could see.  But otherwise, not a lot of pomp and circumstance.

What’s remarkable is that students like Allison are the subject of interviews recorded for mass consumption.  Other students are the ones conducting the interviews on sites and spaces self-built and independently conceived for publishing all kinds of media.  These kids have audiences, influence and great ideas.

None of this would have been possible even just a few years ago.  Medical students were to be seen and not heard.  Independent of the availability of technology, there was the industrial age belief that our ideas needed permission to be shared.

For me it’s amazing.  And the fact that the tweet came and went so casually is inspiring.  This is what medical students now do.  We think nothing of it.  Making, living and working in public is becoming second nature.

This is public thinking.  It’s both a mindset and a workflow.  It’s reflective of the changing culture of medicine.