DiagnosisPR Speaks with Bertalan Meskó, Med Student and Medicine 2.0 Guru

By Cheri

DiagnosisPR recently caught up with Bertalan (Berci) Meskó, a last-year medical student, studying to become a clinical geneticist with a specialization in personalized genomics.  While balancing his course work, he has also been recognized as a Medicine 2.0 expert with an award-winning blog, ScienceRoll.  Berci was kind enough to provide us with some insight into how the medical community is adopting social media tools and how they are changing the profession.

1. Where do you feel the medical community is in the adoption curve of social media tools?

This year is really rich in new sites and communities focusing on the needs of medical professionals. Some weeks ago, I came up with a compilation of scientific and medical social media tools and it seems I have to update that list from time to time as the number is still growing. Though I’m not sure physicians need that many tools and are ready to join communities that are relatively new as they don’t have too much time in their practice so they need tools that can facilitate their work, for example, by reviewing the literature and finding the essential publications for them. Such a tool is Biowizard.com.

2. How do you see your acceptance of these tools blending with your daily activities post graduation?

I cannot imagine my post-graduate daily activities without the tools of web 2.0. With RSS feed, I can keep myself up-to-date in my field of interest (personalized genetics) easily. By reading blog carnivals (such as Gene Genie), I’m sure I’ll know about all the important news and announcements of genetics. As I use medical community sites (e.g. Tiromed.com), it’s quite easy to find residency places or international collaborators for my research projects. And many more examples prove, at least for me, the real power of web 2.0.

3. How do you see this changing the profession?

It is changing the profession. The reason why is not because web 2.0 is a bubble or so over-hyped, but because being more up-to-date than your colleagues, making more new contacts or being able to find collaborators more easily is a career advantage. And I must mention the role of e-patients who are really about to change healthcare and medicine. They have expectations (to communicate with their doctors on-line, to find information about their medical conditions on-line or find relevant information that can represent the practices of their doctors properly) physicians of the 21st century must meet.

4. It has been widely noted the discrepancies in how physicians are using email in interactions with patients.  What are your views on this topic?

Using e-mail in physician-patient interaction can be a great communication channel. But it must be used wisely with a secure service. According to a recent study (E-mail Communication Between Physicians and Patients conducted by Mount Sinai Hospital), 50,49% of e-mails a physician (specialized in breast surgery) received were focusing on general information about breast cancer. That kind of information could be accessed through medically reliable, peer-reviewed websites. Moreover, doctors are often afraid of getting too many e-mails while this study pointed out that relatively few patients chose this way of communication although it was available to them. And last but not least, answers can be given in an organized fashion.

To sum it up, if a doctor uses a secure e-mail service and knows which reliable websites to offer to patients, e-mail can be a perfect tool that can save time and effort for both physicians and patients.

5. How do you (and other up-and-coming medical minds that are actively engaged in social media) prefer that people get in touch with you?

I receive many e-mails like that „Dear Sir, You should check this new service or product out and promote it. While I prefer getting letters like „Dear Berci, I know you’re writing about web 2.0’s role in medicine on your blog, ScienceRoll…” A few personal words can prove the writer of the e-mail spent some minutes with getting more information about that particular blogger. That means a lot to me. Maybe other bloggers have a totally different opinion.

6. Have you been taking part in any virtual learning experiences during your studies?  How have these technologies progressed in the past few years?

I’ve been an organizer of several medical and scientific events for one and a half years now as the virtual world of Second Life provides medical educators and students with numerous educational opportunities. There are regular presentations about important medical issues; simulations and exercises organized weekly at the Ann Myers Medical Center; physicians and medical students can listen to cardiac murmurs and can visualize the proper stethoscope position on a virtual patient at the Heart Murmur Sim. On the Genomics Island, students get a comprehensive introduction to the education of medical genomics. On the island of Nature.com, scientific sessions are being organized for famous science bloggers and mentors.

Major organizations (Red Cross, CDC, NHS London) have already established their virtual presence in Second Life, and I’m sure, there are many more to come.

To learn more, visit DiagnosisPR’s sister blog RaceTalk, where Berci has answered some more questions about Medicine 2.0, healthcare communities in Web 2.0 and the medical education evolution community.

Add comment September 29th, 2008

Dr. Castellanos on the Use of Social Media in the Medical Field

by Cheri

This week I had the opportunity to do an email interview with Dr. Paul Castellanos, Associate Professor of Surgery, Division of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), about the use of social media, blogs and the internet in the medical field.  Dr. Castellanos is certainly ahead of the curve in the field and has several Web sites (PDT Surgeon, Airway Surgeon) that detail some of the innovative procedures that he is working on including, percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy (PDT).

Here is my interview with him:

DiagnosisPR: How long have you been engaging in social media activities, including blogging?  Do you participate in Twitter, Facebook or Sermo?

Dr. Paul Castellanos: I’ve been participating in social media for a couple of years and began these activities with my Web sites.  Only recently have I developed my current Web sites.  I do have a Facebook identity but only so I can keep up with my 15 year old who is addicted to it.  Several of his friends have added me to their fiends list, much to his chagrin.

DiagnosisPR: How much time do you dedicate a day/week to these activities?

PC: This varies a lot.  There are some months where I don’t spend any time with these activities not at all; other times I may spend the whole weekend updating or launching a new site.

DiagnosisPR: How has this changed your profession?

PC: Visiting one site on Tracheal Stenosis on Yahoo! has changed me professionally.  It gave me an appreciation for the “lost in the woods” feeling that a lot of patients have who suffer from serious airway disease.  It has also made me somewhat mad that there is so much misinformation out there (on the internet) and some pretty poor practitioners.  There are also a lot of sufferers who become defacto clinicians and this is dangerous however well meant it is.

DiagnosisPR: How is it being adopted/received by your peers?

PC: So far, the few of my ENT (ed: ear nose and throat) colleagues who have seen my sites are supportive of working with social media.  I’ve found that mostly non-ENT’s go to my sites to get information outside of their sphere.

Thank you again to Dr. Castellanos for taking the time to speak with DiagnosisPR.

Add comment September 17th, 2008

Reforming UK healthcare funding

By Rachel

With the continuing criticism of NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence), it seems to me that we should be looking for new ways to address healthcare funding in the UK. This is particularly relevant as the population ages and increasingly expensive therapies are coming on to the market, such as the cancer drugs.

Perhaps we need to move on and engage the public in a new dialogue. A recent report entitled ‘Making the NHS the best insurance policy in the world’, issued by the UK think tank Reform, poses an interesting concept. The report calls for a National Health Protection System whereby healthcare systems would compete to insure patients. The aim is to create competition between private firms and primary care trusts, resulting in driving down costs and improving choice. Is this the debate we should be having rather than continuing the rage against NICE?

Add comment September 17th, 2008

NICE under fire again

By Rachel

The UK drug watchdog, NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence), was under fire again recently, this time from the Daily Mail (one of the UK’s most influential national newspapers). This time it’s not the guidance given on prescription drugs that are ‘too expensive’ for the NHS, but rather how much NICE spends on ‘spin’: “fury over drug watchdog’s £4.5m PR budget”. The article states that NICE spends £4.5m on ‘communications’ and £3.4m on assessing new medicines. However, a breakdown on what is included in the communications category is not divulged.

NICE is a hugely influential organisation.  In 2006/7 it produced 21 technology appraisals, 50 interventional procedure reviews, 13 clinical guidelines and 2 sets of public health advice, all of which required extensive communication and collaboration with a large number of stakeholders, ranging from patients to healthcare professionals, public health experts and health economists. In addition to engaging stakeholders in the review processes, NICE reaches out to target audiences through a number of other communications channels to ensure there is a two-way dialogue between stakeholders and partner organisations.

It seems to me that the issue here is the balance of spend – as a public body, NICE cannot make recommendations without due consultation.  It has a duty to communicate clearly and transparently with patient groups and healthcare professionals.  This communication requirement cannot realistically be achieved on a shoestring budget, but neither should it be profligate in its spend.

Add comment September 12th, 2008