Whether it's at a party or in the grocery store aisle, doctors have always been faced with the challenge of patients asking them medical questions outside of the office setting. But now that more physicians are using social media, the question of how to handle medical inquiries in the digital space is becoming an increasing concern.
In this TEDxNijmegen 2013 video, Bertalan Mesko, MD, PhD, discusses using online communication tools to create medical social networks and the challenges in harnessing these communities to crowdsource clinical questions. Pointing to the example of comedian Conan O’Brien jokingly asking his Twitter followers for dermatology advice, Mesko notes that social media can yield misleading medical information and warns, "Crowdsourcing in medicine only works if you know your communities." Watch Mesko's full talk to learn more about how he effectively uses online networks to share trusted medical information and why curation is imperative when it comes to crowdsourcing health-care questions.
Via @StanfordMedX
Previously: How, exactly, can Twitter benefit physicians?, How can physicians manage their online persona? KevinMD offers guidance, 33Charts’ Bryan Vartabedian talks about physician blogging, A guide to the social web for physicians and Physician 2.0: Do doctors risk becoming irrelevant if they ignore social media?
