Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media: New Advisory Board Members January 31, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Hospital, Video, Web 2.0.9 comments
I had the honour to be included in the Advisory Board of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. Mayo Clinic has been an example about using social media by a healthcare institution and I’m very glad I can take active part in planning and designing their online activities from now.
In September, the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media named 13 members to our External Advisory Board and announced a plan to crowdsource the remaining positions.
We knew we wanted diverse perspectives and backgrounds on the board, and we felt crowdsourcing and using social media tools to aid the search would help us get the broadest input in candidate recruitment and identifying those diverse perspectives.
The response was overwhelming, with more than 120 candidates nominated or applying for what we had planned to be a dozen positions. With so many good candidates, the selection process for new members was difficult.
HealCam: Chatroulette in Medicine January 31, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medgadget, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.6 comments
HealCam, a project launched by the Medgadget team, got huge attention due to a recent BoingBoing post. I wrote about this interesting service that is the medical alternative of ChatRoulette months ago and as the only element of success for HealCam is the critical mass, this cross post might help them reach their aims.
HealCam is a ChatRoulette variant that invites you to select a disease, medical condition, or health issue (Crohn’s, back pain, pregnancy, bipolar disorder, allergies, HIV, etc) and connects you with someone else who shares your problems, so you can share notes. Sounds like a helpful way to find tips and commiseration when you need it.
Stanford Summit 2011! January 31, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Conference, Medical education, Medicine 2.0 Course.7 comments
I was honoured to be invited to speak at the upcoming Stanford Summit about the university course I launched in Debrecen in 2008 that helps medical, dentistry, pharmacy and public health students become web-savvy regarding social media, digital technologies and e-patient connections.
The Stanford Summit @ Medicine 2.0 is a special one-day event that will occur on September 16, 2011, on the eve of the Fourth World Congress on Social Media and Web 2.0 in Health, Medicine and Biomedical Science. It is designed to complement, yet be distinctly different from the two-day academically-focused Medicine 2.0 conference.
I guess you can spot a few names among the confirmed speakers.
Medicine 2.0 Congress in: Stanford! January 30, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Conference, Medicine, Medicine 2.0 Congress.2 comments
Last November, I gave a presentation about Webicina.com at the Medicine 2.0 Congress in Maastricht, The Netherlands. The next event will take place at the great Stanford University. It’s now time for the abstracts!
Medicine 2.0 ’11 will contain a mix of traditional academic/research, practice and business presentations, keynote presentations, and panel discussions to discuss emerging issues. We strive for an interdisciplinary mix of presenters from different countries and disciplines (e.g. health care, social sciences, computer science, engineering, or business) and with a different angle (research, practice, and business).
Videogames with paramecia players January 26, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Biology, Fun, Game, science, Sciencefun, Video.3 comments
Stanford University bioengineer Ingmar Riedel-Kruse and his colleagues are developing “biotic games” where players control paramecia and other living microorganisms. The PacMan-like video games are the first in which a player’s actions influence the behavior of living microorganisms while the game is being played.
Here we propose the concept of ‘biotic games’, i.e., games that operate on biological processes. Utilizing a variety of biological processes we designed and tested a collection of games: ‘Enlightenment’, ‘Ciliaball’, ‘PAC-mecium’, ‘Microbash’, ‘Biotic Pinball’, ‘POND PONG’, ‘PolymerRace’, and ‘The Prisoner’s Smellemma’. We found that biotic games exhibit unique features compared to existing game modalities, such as utilizing biological noise, providing a real-life experience rather than virtual reality, and integrating the chemical senses into play. Analogous to video games, biotic games could have significant conceptual and cost-reducing effects on biotechnology and eventually healthcare; enable volunteers to participate in crowd-sourcing to support medical research; and educate society at large to support personal medical decisions and the public discourse on bio-related issues.
Psychological Effects of Personal Genetic Testing January 25, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Genetic testing, Medicine.3 comments
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing is becoming more and more apparent even though its clinical validity and utility are pretty questionable regarding medical decisions. Eric Topol and his team now studied over 2000 patients who had genomic tests (Navigenics) and reported if there was any changes in symptoms of anxiety, intake of dietary fat, and exercise behavior. The results are not surprising therefore they raise the question whether these tests can be used for anything at all. The study was published in NEJM.
From a cohort of 3639 enrolled subjects, 2037 completed follow-up. Primary analyses showed no significant differences between baseline and follow-up in anxiety symptoms (P=0.80), dietary fat intake (P=0.89), or exercise behavior (P=0.61). Secondary analyses revealed that test-related distress was positively correlated with the average estimated lifetime risk among all the assessed conditions (β=0.117, P<0.001). However, 90.3% of subjects who completed follow-up had scores indicating no test-related distress. There was no significant increase in the rate of use of screening tests associated with genomewide profiling, most of which are not considered appropriate for screening asymptomatic persons in any case.
In a selected sample of subjects who completed follow-up after undergoing consumer genomewide testing, such testing did not result in any measurable short-term changes in psychological health, diet or exercise behavior, or use of screening tests. Potential effects of this type of genetic testing on the population at large are not known.
(Hat tip: Medgadget)
Electromagnetic signals from bacterial DNA? January 24, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in DNA.5 comments
Luc Montagnier received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but now he came up with a more than strange theory. He thinks DNA can teleport from one tube to another via electromagnetic signals. Is this the so-called Nobel-disease?
French virologist Luc Montagnier stunned his colleagues at a prestigious international conference when he presented a new method for detecting viral infections that bore close parallels to the basic tenets of homeopathy.
Although fellow Nobel prize winners — who view homeopathy as quackery — were left openly shaking their heads, Montagnier’s comments were rapidly embraced by homeopaths eager for greater credibility.
Montagnier told the conference last week that solutions containing the DNA of pathogenic bacteria and viruses, including HIV, “could emit low frequency radio waves” that induced surrounding water molecules to become arranged into “nanostructures”. These water molecules, he said, could also emit radio waves
He suggested water could retain such properties even after the original solutions were massively diluted, to the point where the original DNA had effectively vanished. In this way, he suggested, water could retain the “memory” of substances with which it had been in contact — and doctors could use the emissions to detect disease.
Google Translate Conversation Mode January 24, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Google.3 comments
If you have ever had language problems with patients or collegues, you will find the Conversation Mode Beta of Google Translate amazing.
Scienceroll.com: Weekly Introduction January 23, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine.1 comment so far
If you are looking for interesting articles and news on medicine 2.0 or health 2.0, find me on Twitter or on Friendfeed.
For news and articles about the impact of web 2.0 on medicine and healthcare, please follow the Medicine 2.0 Friendfeed room.
For news and articles about personalized medicine and genetics, please follow the Gene Genie Friendfeed room.
Internet in Medicine University Course: We are in the fourth semester of the first university course that focuses on web 2.0 and medicine for medical students.
Medicine 2.0 Collection: I maintain the biggest collection of links and posts focusing on web 2.0 and medicine.
Webicina.com is my service that curates medical content in social media for free fo medical professionals and e-patients.
PeRSSonalized Medicine is the simplest, free, customizable medical information aggregator covering over 80 medical specialties and conditions in 17 languages!
Scienceroll Search is a personalized medical search engine powered by PolyMeta search and clustering engine. You can choose which databases to search in and which one to exclude from your list. It works with well-known medical search engines and databases and we’re totally open to add new ones or remove those you don’t really like.
List of biomedical and scientific community sites: More than 30 communities with links, descriptions and screenshots.
List of Biomedical video sites: Almost 40 sites featuring scientific or medical videos and videocasts.
What medical smartphones apps do You use? January 21, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Mobile, Web 2.0.2 comments
I’ve recently described how I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab in medicine and in all my online activities. There is no doubt about the power of mobile health and as now there is a medical category even on the Android Marketplace, there will be more and more health apps this year. I also wrote about websites and search engines that will help you find interesting and useful medical apps, but the best way would be crowd-sourcing, of course. As a first step, I asked my friend and squash partner, Gabor Csato, MD, registrar (anaesthesiology and intensive therapy) to share the apps he uses in his practice on his iPhone with us.
Pubmed search app, anaesthesiology descriptions and guides, calculators, Epocrates database, pharmindex and one surprise app (Webicina.com which I will descibe in details soon).
I use the apps below on my Android:
- Endocrine Diseases
- First Aid
- Genetics and Birth Defects
- JEFIT
- Layar
- Instant Heart rate
Please send us screenshots about what kind of medical/health apps you use!
