Bryan Vartabedian, MD, has some great advice for physicians who are contacted by patients via Twitter (as he once was):
I took the conversation offline. I don’t discuss patient problems in places where others can see. So my first order of business in this case was to get the conversation to a place where it can be private. I called mom, found out what was going on and rearranged her appointment to a time appropriate to the child’s problem.
Vartabedian writes frequently about the convergence of social media and medicine on his 33 Charts blog.
Previously: Why doctors and patients shouldn't discuss medical problems on social media