Friday, July 24, 2009

Docs and Twitter

Since joining Twitter a few months ago, we have watched our network grow and each day the Twitterverse is abuzz with interesting links and insights, many of which are from doctors.

I recently began to wonder how and why doctors use the social media. Somehow docs are finding time to pound out – in 140 characters or less – updates on what they are doing, links to articles they read, or re-tweets (resent tweets) of others' Twitter updates. Read more

(Right now, I am putting together a podcast on the topic and interviewed a couple doctors about their Twitter use. The American Medical News also had an interesting story on it.)

Many doctors seem to be sending out links and news items, while others are broadcasting the minutia of the day. One doc we follow and whom I interviewed, sends sometimes a dozen updates in a day, some of which offer a glimpse into the daily grind:
“ahead of schedule for a change”
“in office. there are already four people waiting at the door and it looks like all of them are waiting for me”
“time for bed”

Another doc told me it builds a community among physicians and others, and that often medicine is far from the tweet topics. And that Twitter is the new blogging.

Should docs use Twitter? If you’re a tweeter, why? How do you balance building a community with divulging too much personal information (on your or patients)? And how do you find the time?


1 comment:

  1. I have found Twitter, and less so Facebook, to be extremely valuable and fun in building my optometry practice. Just last week, I got saw several new patients that came directly from twitter. Although it was a first exam, the bond we had was much more like established patients.

    I was recently interviews about my use of twitter for the office. You can read it here if you like: http://tinyurl.com/mmoepq.

    Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
    Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
    @BrightEyesTampa
    @NateBW

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