How Social Media Can Help Doctors Stay Up-to-Date

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Physicians, like many other professionals, have continuing education requirements. We are exposed to the newest research and advances while in training, but after we pass our board exams and enter practice, the onus is on us to maintain our knowledge to current standards. Without regular reading and attendance at medical conferences, you can easily get left behind as medicine advances.

I am currently attending the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in New Orleans. It is always a wonderful meeting, full of new information to bring home to my patients. I will be periodically tweeting medical information that I believe may be of interest to my readers: http://twitter.com/allergistmommy

Other colleagues will be doing the same- Matthew Bowdish, M.D. is an allergist who has shared information from past allergy conferences, and will be tweeting at http://twitter.com/matthewbowdish (His tweets from the Western Allergy Society meeting were great, and I'm sure those from AAAAI will be just as informative!)

Ves Dimov, M.D. is an allergy fellow and prolific tweeter, whose updates educate both physicians and patients on the science of allergy: http://twitter.com/allergy

Amazing how technology helps us share information so widely and quickly!

In a seminar earlier today, I shared with colleagues how I believe that using social media tools has made me a better physician. Because I have access to so much information, I read more, and learn more, than I could without these connections. Because I hear first-hand what patients/parents care about, I know what to spend time discussing during visits, and what to write about. So thanks, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger! You're an integral part of this physician's continuing medical education!

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2010 at 1:05 AM

    make sure you visit booth #436 !! :-)

    a mom who would not have made it without KWFA

    ReplyDelete

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