Facebook + Physicians

By Jay Scrub

Your patients tweet from your waiting room. They describes their symptoms on Facebook. They ask about that 'funny rash' on Quora. They looked you up on LinkedIn.

Your patients are engaging in social media - are you?

Not just personally, but professionally - the expectations have changed. Medicine ultimately is a service industry, and like all service industries, the expectations of our customer, our patients, have changed. They are online and expect us to be as well. The question facing most practices is, to what degree? With practices stretched thin already managing work in the office, how can they devote resources to having an online presence?

These questions do not have simple answers, but like any medical problem you encounter, the first step is to gather more information. Think about your patient population - how active online are they in general? Clearly, there will be a big difference between a pediatrics practice and a geriatrics one. If your patient population is quite broad, another approach is to [drum roll] ask them! Many patients would be happy to let you know where they look for medical information and what ways they find convenient to communicate with your office.

As you have determine what your patients want, you also have to ask yourself how much are you willing to devote. In this day and age, being absent online is no longer an option. At a minimum, you should post basic information about your practice such as the address, telephone number, and office hours. I highly suggest that you have at least a static website that offers this information, and definitely make it accessible on sites that people use to find locations such as Google Maps, Bing Maps, and Yelp.

However, this post is about 'social' media, and static information is not very social. Look into creating a presence on Facebook and Twitter. You will have to judge whether you want these channels to be more one-way, with patients sending information to you, versus two-way with you or your office actively responding. You also have to judge how 'medical' you want your communications to be, keeping confidentiality and liability issues in mind. Avoid discussing specific medical issues in these forums. However, they function great for communicating general health tips, answering general health questions, and providing specific office information such as hour changes or new medication / treatment options available. Images showing when preventative care should be performed, or basic management algorithms, can be very helpful for patients. If you are particularly intrepid, ask a patient with a 'success' story if you can share their story on your social site. Draw your patients into the conversation with you.

Social media is an uncharted territory for most physicians so don't fear - explore! Learn what kinds of pages and accounts work best on these sites. Try different types of comments and posts. Including engaging content that your patients/fans would want to share with each other. In the social media world, something being 'viral' is a good thing! Help your users catch the bug! Chart your own course in the social media waters. Your patients will benefit and sing your praises - online and off.

About: Jay Scrub blogs at http://www.ScrubNotes.com, a site for physican trainees of all levels discussing topics for success in medicine.

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Visualize Your LinkedIn Network

Visualizing your business network can give you some interesting insights about where your connections are.

This is a map of my personal network on LinkedIn. (You'll see me in the middle there.)

What I find most interesting is that large blue mass to the the left. Those links are to individuals who are entrepreneurs, angel investors and startup guys. The green links are the same but differ in location from what I can see. The pinkish links to the right are my current connections through Freelance MD.

If you're looking for a nonclinical job or building any business on the side, your business network is the place you'll start.

Join the Freelance MD Group on LinkedIn here

Get your own LinkedIn network map here

Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn

One of the first key points of advice I have for physicians interested in non-clinical career expansion is get on LinkedIn.

Why?  Well, for one, it is a major player in the world of networking 2.0.  It has taken the place of the rolodex and become the place to present your professional presence online.  For physicians that have not begun networking, it is a great way to start expanding your circle of contacts from outside of your direct friends and colleagues, to those who are “friends of friends”, 2^nd degree connections, and professionals interested in the same things you are.

For docs that are considering expanding into industry, I recently read that more than 60% of Fortune 100 companies use LinkedIn to save time and recruit/hire best candidates.  This means that recruiters from these organizations – some of the largest and most recognized in the world – are on LinkedIn every day to find and vet job candidates.  Hence another reason why you should be on it, and making the most of it.

Here are some ways to make your LinkedIn account work for you:

1. Make sure that you have a comprehensive, detailed profile set up.  This is the first place people will look to get a sense of who you are.  You want it to be a solid overview of your professional direction, your accomplishments, and a snapshot view of what you “bring to the table”.  Make sure it includes a picture – professional picture only, so that viewers can get a visual of you.  And skip the personal details on your profile – there is no need to include your birthday, your home address, or your personal interests.  This isn’t Facebook!  Your professional  email and (optionally) your work phone number will suffice.  Make sure to check the box that you are open to career opportunities if that’s what you want to reflect.  And make sure you use keywords in your profile set up, so if someone (a recruiter perhaps) is searching for a “CMO”, you will show up in search results. 
   
   
2. Make your profile (or most of it) public so that people who are not within the LinkedIn network can still view it without having to set up an account (although I don’t know why they wouldn’t!).
   
   
3. Join Discussion Groups in your areas of interest.  Do a search under “groups” for keywords that you’re particularly passionate/knowledgeable about.  For example, if you search for “Healthcare IT” over 5,000 groups are listed!  Be particular, and sign up to join the ones you think would be best (i.e., have a large network, are reputable).  Joining a number of groups will keep you actively engaged with a strong network of people with similar interests, and it will also drive traffic to your profile.  
   
   
4. Participate!  Once you’ve signed up for groups, go on them regularly to either post questions / discussion points, or to participate in dialogues going on over particular topics.  You’ll be amazed at what you can learn from other like-minded professionals.  You can also quickly build a reputation as a subject matter expert in your area of interest.  The key to success?  Contribute thoughtfully and intelligently – your answers become your online professional personae, and you don’t want to come across negatively.  If you post questions, make sure they are of a relevant, interesting topic that you think might be of use to the others in the group.  And if people answer, make sure to thank them.
   
   
5. Don’t try to “sell”.  Add value instead.  One of the things I’ve seen be the kiss of death for peoples’ LinkedIn reputation is the “over-selling” of their products or services to their LinkedIn contacts or within their Discussion Groups.  The purpose of these forums is to network, and if networking is truly about building relationships and looking for strategic alliances, then the better approach is to simply add value.  You won’t need to puff up yourself or your products/services if you simply provide something – be it an opinion, a resource – that gives back to the people in your network.  If they find it useful they will come to you, usually by checking out your profile and seeing who you are and what you do. That is why having a “meaty” profile matters.
   
   
6. Make connections.  Your network is a good reflection of your professional reach.  If you only show 5-10 connections, people don’t know what to think … that you’re a late adopter?  That you’re a technophobe?  That you don’t have any friends or colleagues?  At least 30-60 connections gives a much better impression for people viewing your profile, so the effort it takes to connect with others is worth it.
   
   
7. Protect your network.  My rule of thumb is to connect with people that are either 1)  people I’ve worked directly with and are my “trusted colleagues” that I can vouch for, 2) people that I’ve met through networking events, conferences, etc., who I know fairly well, 3)  people that are work “acquaintances”, but who I am confident will be value-added members of my network, 4) people that are connections of my trusted colleagues, who basically have credibility by affiliation, or 5) people that are members of my trusted LinkedIn groups, based on the same reason as #4.  There are people who will connect with anyone and everyone simply to build their network and rack up numbers.  I am not that way.  Since I view my LinkedIn network as a trusted source of friends, colleagues and professional contacts – as well as a group that overall reflects upon my professional presence online – I make sure that I choose my connections wisely.

For a great series of articles on how to make LinkedIn work for you, see here:  http://linkedintelligence.com/smart-ways-to-use-linkedin/. 

And for those of you that are really new to LinkedIn (the majority of physicians that I talk to!), here is a real “how-to” for getting started :  http://www.dummies.com/how-to/internet/Blogging-Social-Networking/LinkedIn.html

 See you on LinkedIn!

AMA Policy: Medical Professionalism & Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging & Physicians

A new policy on professionalism in the use of social media was adopted at the November 8th 2010 meeting of the American Medical Association. These basic guidelines represent one of the first steps by a major American physician organization to offer guidance in the appropriate use of social/new media.

It's pretty generic and basic stuff but it does recognize that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and other social networks are destined to become intimately intertwined with medicine.

The Internet has created the ability for medical students and physicians to communicate and share information quickly and to reach millions of people easily.  Participating in social networking and other similar Internet opportunities can support physicians’ personal expression, enable individual physicians to have a professional presence online, foster collegiality and camaraderie within the profession, provide opportunity to widely disseminate public health messages and other health communication.  Social networks, blogs, and other forms of communication online also create new challenges to the patient-physician relationship.  Physicians should weigh a number of considerations when maintaining a presence online:

(a)  Physicians should be cognizant of standards of patient privacy and confidentiality that must be maintained in all environments, including online, and must refrain from posting identifiable patient information online.

(b)  When using the Internet for social networking, physicians should use privacy settings to safeguard personal information and content to the extent possible, but should realize that privacy settings are not absolute and that once on the Internet, content is likely there permanently.  Thus, physicians should routinely monitor their own Internet presence to ensure that the personal and professional information on their own sites and, to the extent possible, content posted about them by others, is accurate and appropriate.

(c)  If they interact with patients on the Internet, physicians must maintain appropriate boundaries of the patient-physician relationship in accordance with professional ethical guidelines just, as they would in any other context.

(d)  To maintain appropriate professional boundaries physicians should consider separating personal and professional content online.

(e)  When physicians see content posted by colleagues that appears unprofessional they have a responsibility to bring that content to the attention of the individual, so that he or she can remove it and/or take other appropriate actions.  If the behavior significantly violates professional norms and the individual does not take appropriate action to resolve the situation, the physician should report the matter to appropriate authorities.

(f)  Physicians must recognize that actions online and content posted may negatively affect their reputations among patients and colleagues, may have consequences for their medical careers (particularly for physicians-in-training and medical students), and can undermine public trust in the medical profession.

Of course, Freelance MD is all over social media. Here's just a few of the places that you can 'like' or join other physicians who want intellilgent information.

• Like Freelance MD on Facebook
• Join Freelance MD on LinkedIn
• Follow us on Twitter
• Get Freelance MD post emailed directly to your inbox