What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? I think not. It ends up on YouTube. Case in point. You must be careful when you are around Dr. Anonymous. He has a video camera, and he’s not afraid to use it. You’ve been warned.
The first med blogger track at BlogWorld/New Media Expo 09 was a wonderful experience. I want to thank Johnson and Johnson and Medpage Today for their sponsorship. I also want to thank Kim at Emergiblog and Dr. Val at Better Health for all their hard work. Kim knocked on doors and got things rolling, and Val help put the panels together. This shindig would not have gotten off the ground without YOU!
I don’t know where to begin. Going to Las Vegas is like dropping in on another planet. It’s filled with a lot of stuff that can get you into trouble like slot machines, Elvis wedding chapels, and machineguns. No, that’s not a typo. I said machineguns. This is the first sign that I saw when I stepped off the plane when I landed in Las Vegas. It’s an ad for a Las Vegas shooting range where you can fire off a few rounds when you get into town. Whatever happened to the days of innocence when the most exciting thing you could do while you were in Las Vegas was get drunk, marry someone you didn’t know, and go see a Wayne Newton show? I got worried when I saw this sign, but then I thought what could happen at a blogger convention. After all, I was going to be surrounded by computer geeks and responsible health care professionals like GruntDoc and Dr. Wes. Right?
Meet GruntDoc, seated on the left, and Dr. Wes. Don’t let their sweet boyish good looks fool you. They are a couple of wild and crazy guys. There are disturbing rumors circulating the blogosphere about these two. The rumors involve a bigwig keynote speaker from Ford Motor Company, bad acoustics, and something about getting thrown out of a banquet hall. Are these rumors true? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but let’s just say that I can’t stop laughing every time I see a Ford dealership. Good going guys! (Photo credit, Kim at Emergiblog)
Then we have Dr. Anonymous and Kerri Morrone Sparling at Six Until Me. Kerri and I met a couple of month ago in Washington, D.C., but this was the first time that Dr. A. and I had met. He’s great, too, but he’s a little naughty, so we assigned Kerri to keep an eye on him. She did a great job. We didn’t have to bail Dr. A. out of jail or anything, although he did stay out late one night with the guys and didn’t come back to the hotel until almost sunrise. He was on his own that night. Kerri turned in early. She needed a break.
You don’t have to go into a casino to hit a jackpot. I love tee-shirts and exhibitors were giving them away inside the convention center. Dr. Wes and Dr. Rob Lamberts at Musings of a Distractible Mind helped me out by doing their Tyra Banks Top Model pose for the camera. Aren’t they handsome? You should see them do their runway strut. Thank you for modeling the tee-shirt for me guys. I deleted that video from my iPhone. You know the one I’m talking about. (Wink.) The world will never know what they missed.
I think Paul Levy at Running a Hospital had insider information about what was going to happen at the convention. This is Paul participating in panel discussion via a teleconference. He didn’t come to the convention because of “scheduling issues.” Yeah, right. We get it. You have an image to uphold. You just didn’t want to be seen in public with a bunch of wild and crazy med bloggers. No offense taken, Paul. Maybe we will see you next year.
My friend and morning ABC anchor, Dave Lucas, is tired of all the false health information that fills his email inbox each day. He’s very relieved that there are physicians, nurses, and patient advocates “swimming against the tide” of pseudoscience and misleading health information online. Today Dave and I discussed how people can find accurate and potentially life-saving health information through peer-reviewed medical blogs, thanks to the health blogger code of ethics (administered by MedPage Today).
I have a lot of friends in Boston this week who are attending the annual meeting for the American Academy of Family Physicians (ie - Congress of Delegates or AAFP CoD). And, they may not be too happy with what they read in this post, but here goes.
As some of you know, I’m scheduled to present at BlogWorld Expo (BWE) later this week in Las Vegas. I’m going to be moderating a panel about how patient privacy and the HIPPA law can impact blogging, podcasting, and interacting with social networking.
When I was offered the moderating spot, I did think to myself, “You know, this is the same week that the AAFP national meeting will be taking place in Boston.” I haven’t seen many of my AAFP friends and colleagues for a while now. Through the summer, I’ve gotten a lot of messages through Facebook asking whether I was going to attend the Boston meeting this year.
After thinking about it for a while, I decided that I would rather go to BlogWorld Expo than AAFP. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I believe that this is an important point for social networking (like twitter, facebook, etc) and medicine. This year will be the first year that there will be a “Medblogger Track” of programming at the BlogWorld conference. It was nice to be asked to be a part of the first type of gathering like this at a primarily tech-centered meeting.
Secondly, I’m probably not the first to say that I’m feeling a little frustrated with organized medicine right now – whether it be AAFP, or AMA, or AHA, or other national medical organizations. I’m a guy in small town NE Ohio who’s trying to make the best of it in these economic times and “sociomedicolegal” environment. My patients, my community, and my colleagues are just frustrated. And, all I’m seeing organized medicine do is just play the same “inside the Washington beltway politics” that I’ve seen for years when I attended the AAFP annual meetings.
So, to all my friends in Boston, I hope you have a good time this week and I hope AAFP reveals some plans on how to advocate better for the fundamentals and ideals of Family Medicine. I hope to return to the AAFP annual meeting soon in the future, when I feel my voice can again make a difference for organized medicine. But for now, I’m just not feeling it is…
From health privacy to the ethical obligation of doctors to be visible on Twitter, the panel-based dialog at Blog World Expo raised as many questions as answers.Medical professionals in the online space face remarkable challenges, especially with regard to transparency, personal boundaries, and the definition of patient privacy.It’s clear that our technology is ahead of our legal and ethical dialog.
Despite those challenges, doctors and nurses in the social space have a remarkable opportunity to build on what’s been done.Many of those at the Blog World Expo medical track have created the digital inroads that are changing the way the world sees doctors and nurses.
Among other things, the experience at Blog World Expo proved to me that online socialization will never replace the power of just getting together. It’s amazing to meet people you have watched for so long. And when you’ve sat and visited, a writer’s online voice seems to make more sense.
Thanks to Johnson & Johnson for sponsoring our track.And an even bigger thanks to Dr. Val Jones (Better Health) for pulling it all together and giving medical bloggers a voice at one of the world’s largest social media meetings.
Hopefully the role of medical professionals at Blog World Expo will continue to grow.Here are a few things I’d like to see in meetings to come:
Think outside the blog.While he had a lot of discussion about blogs, they’re slowly evolving as a secondary notion in the social media space.The online world now runs in real time.We need to explore the role of live socialization in medicine.
Bring in the smart people.We need to import the wisdom of non-medical social gurus to help our messaging on health.I would love to hear Steve Rubel tell me now lifestreaming could be applied in some creative way as a physician.We could all take some lessons from Chris Brogan on ways to cultivate our networks.
Expand the role of social patient.Ultimately they are why we’re here.I expect we could all learn a lot from their involvement in the dialog.
Perhaps there are other things social health professionals need to be talking about.Let me know what you think.
First day of the general BlogWorld sessions and as usual, I came away with renewed energy, a plethora of ideas and a dramatically decreased bank account! No, not on gambling – I hit the Barnes & Noble on-site kiosk.
God, I love books!
But the highlight of the day? I met my Blogfather! Meet Hugh Hewitt, talk show host extraordinaire! I think if you did a “paternity” test on every blog online today, 75% of them would be related, in some way, to Hugh’s influence.
Blog World CEO Rick Calvert was interviewed by Hugh, and he mentioned the medblogger track!
They actually recognize, and fund, nurse researchers!
Do you know how rare it is to find that anyone realizes that nurse researchers exist, let alone see it on a promotional banner?
I’m so impressed!
Until 8 pm on Saturday, October 17th, for every hashtag of #beatcancer that is used on any tweet, blog or website, donation is made to cancer research. The goal is to set a Guinness record. So please use #beatcancer whenever you tweet, blog or facebook!
*****
A bit of unfinished business from last night: a photo of Doctor Anonymous “taking one for the team”. Seems there was one last King crab leg and someone had to eat it. It was a sacrifice, but he managed to do it.
They swear that this is three-part-harmony not heard since the Bee Gees graced the stage, and I have the tweet to prove it.
Listen to the self-described harmonic convergence and judge for yourself.
*****
I guess I was the only blogger on the face of the earth who did not know who Chad Vader was!
He is Darth Vader’s younger brother and works as a day shift manager in a grocery store. He’s actually quite the gentleman if you like the heavy breathing type.
Well, I picked up my share of swag and tomorrow I’ll pick up some more!
I’m all about the swag, baby, all about the swag…
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? I think not. It ends up on YouTube. Case in point. You must be careful when you are around Dr. Anonymous. He has a video camera, and he’s not afraid to use it. You’ve been warned.
I don’t know where to begin. Going to Las Vegas is like dropping in on another planet. It’s filled with a lot of stuff that can get you into trouble like slot machines, Elvis wedding chapels, and machineguns. No, that’s not a typo. I said machineguns. This is the first sign that I saw when I stepped off the plane when I landed in Las Vegas. It’s an ad for a Las Vegas shooting range where you can fire off a few rounds when you get into town. Whatever happened to the days of innocence when the most exciting thing you could do while you were in Las Vegas was get drunk, marry someone you didn’t know, and go see a Wayne Newton show? I got worried when I saw this sign, but then I thought what could happen at a blogger convention. After all, I was going to be surrounded by computer geeks and responsible health care professionals like GruntDoc and Dr. Wes. Right?
Meet GruntDoc, seated on the left, and Dr. Wes. Don’t let their sweet boyish good looks fool you. They are a couple of wild and crazy guys. There are disturbing rumors circulating the blogosphere about these two. The rumors involve a bigwig keynote speaker from Ford Motor Company, bad acoustics, and something about getting thrown out of a banquet hall. Are these rumors true? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but let’s just say that I can’t stop laughing every time I see a Ford dealership. Good going guys! (Photo credit, Kim at Emergiblog)
Then we have Dr. Anonymous and Kerri Morrone Sparling at Six Until Me. Kerri and I met a couple of month ago in Washington, D.C., but this was the first time that Dr. A. and I had met. He’s great, too, but he’s a little naughty, so we assigned Kerri to keep an eye on him. She did a great job. We didn’t have to bail Dr. A. out of jail or anything, although he did stay out late one night with the guys and didn’t come back to the hotel until almost sunrise. He was on his own that night. Kerri turned in early. She needed a break.
You don’t have to go into a casino to hit a jackpot. I love tee-shirts and exhibitors were giving them away inside the convention center. Dr. Wes and Dr. Rob Lamberts at Musings of a Distractible Mind helped me out by doing their Tyra Banks Top Model pose for the camera. Aren’t they handsome? You should see them do their runway strut. Thank you for modeling the tee-shirt for me guys. I deleted that video from my iPhone. You know the one I’m talking about. (Wink.) The world will never know what they missed.
I think Paul Levy at Running a Hospital had insider information about what was going to happen at the convention. This is Paul participating in panel discussion via a teleconference. He didn’t come to the convention because of “scheduling issues.” Yeah, right. We get it. You have an image to uphold. You just didn’t want to be seen in public with a bunch of wild and crazy med bloggers. No offense taken, Paul. Maybe we will see you next year.
First day of the general BlogWorld sessions and as usual, I came away with renewed energy, a plethora of ideas and a dramatically decreased bank account! No, not on gambling – I hit the Barnes & Noble on-site kiosk.
A bit of unfinished business from last night: a photo of Doctor Anonymous “taking one for the team”. Seems there was one last King crab leg and someone had to eat it. It was a sacrifice, but he managed to do it.