Doctors Don’t Tweet
I didn’t know much about social media until the summer of 2008. Then, I entered Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism as a new student and attended an optional lunch-time session on...
View ArticleWhat the Dermatologist Did Right
Kudos to my newest doctor, a dermatologist whom I met yesterday for evaluation of a small, benign-appearing mole I recently noted on my right leg. What she did right: 1. She saw me promptly, at the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Word of the Week is Cyberanarchist
The word of the week appears on the front page of today’s New York Times in an article on a crowd-sourced response to WikiLeaks: “the Internet assaults underlined the growing reach of self-described...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crowd-Sourcing a Medical Puzzle
The Times ran an intriguing experiment on its Well blog yesterday: a medical problem-solving contest. The challenge, based on the story of a real girl who lives near Philadelphia, drew 1379 posted...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Website About Illness In Celebrities and Other Public Figures
I’m uncertain how I came upon CelebrityDiagnosis.com, a website with an eye on “teachable moments” in medicine. A husband-wife team, Drs. Michele Berman and Mark Boguski, provide health information...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Considering Steve Jobs, Medical Diagnoses and Privacy
Yesterday morning I wrote a short post on CelebrityDiagnosis.com. By evening, news broke that Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs resigned from his position, presumably for reasons of his health. What’s...
View ArticleThe Small Cell Problem, Case Reports and Valuing Patients’ Privacy
A recent post by Dr. Wes Fisher, a cardiologist-electrophysiologist and med-blogger in Illinois, caught my attention. It’s on HIPPA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and...
View ArticleThe ‘Journal’ Asks, Should Patients Have Identification Numbers?
Today’s Wall Street Journal includes a special Big Issues health care section. A post on their blog caught my attention: Should Patient Have Electronic Identification Numbers? The idea is that people...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Greetings from Thailand, and Some News on HIV
Dear Readers, Last week I left for Thailand. Bangkok fascinated me by its mix of peoples, foods, religions, waterways and markets. Today I post from an island in the southern region. I’ve been in...
View ArticleWhy Not Tweet When You Are In the Hospital and Not Feeling Well?
A question surfaced last month is if – or why – patients should tweet, blog, or otherwise share details of their circumstances on the Internet. The discussion focused on the “case” of a friend, a...
View Article