Wendy Sue Swanson (or @SeattleMamaDoc) is a pediatrician, mother, wife, patient, caregiver and blogger.
In the embedded video below, she speaks about the online revolution and the power of social media to enhance the good that doctors can do. I am a believer.
What if you could read a post/tweet every time your doctor had an idea about a new study, a new medicine? Why shouldn’t [many] patients learn from the whiteboard presentation that just occurred in the exam room with one patient?
Some patients get only 15 minutes per year with their doctor. That’s not much. No wonder 80% of folks go to the Internet for health information.
And it is more than just informational; our presence on social media can transmit empathy and understanding–our humanness. Dr. Swanson uses the example of vaccines. My example might be AF. A patient coming to see my can find out that I had AF–and it sucked.
Yes, this is a special time we live in.
This TEDx talk is worth 9 minutes of your time.
Congrats Doc. Beautiful talk.
JMM
P.S. Another great example of the future: my colleague here in Louisville, Dr Kathy Nieder, a primary care doctor, has an outstanding online presence.