7 Features of the New Generation of Physicians November 21, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, List, Medical education, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.19 comments
For the last 4 years, I’ve been teaching medical and public health students about the use of social media and generally digital technologies in medicine and healthcare and I got a good picture of what kind of medical professionals they would become soon. They represent the new generation of physicians.
Here are my points and observations:
- They are technophile. I remember the time when there was no internet, I remember the first website I first saw online. They were born into the technology and internet-based world. For them, websites, Facebook, Twitter and blogs represent the basics. They love gadgets and devices.
- They are fast. They use smartphones, read news online, follow blogs and know what RSS is, they are familiar with multi-tasking. They are much faster than the previous generations therefore they need different tools and solutions in their work.
- But they use the technology for non-professional purposes. Even if they know a lot about social media, they use it like everyone else outside medicine. As long as they don’t have professional motivation regarding the use of social media, they keep on using it for personal reasons. We must help them find the way to use the web in an optimal and efficient way.
- They like balance. They don’t want to become “Gods’ for the patients even if they are trained like that and hate hierarchy. They soon realized common hierarchies are missing in the online world and what matters is the quality of work you do (just see Wikipedia). They need informed patients and want to work with e-patients. They are not afraid of them as they see such patients day by day in the circles of their families, friends and relatives. For them, the concept of being an empowered and enabled patient is absolutely not new.
- They live on the internet. They not only accept the dominance of the online world in almost all processess and activities, but it’s so natural for them. They have been doing banking, messaging, reading, studying and even shopping online in their entire life. It’s obvious they want to use the internet when practicing medicine and they don’t really understand why they cannot use it right now in many areas of medicine.
- They are mobile. They don’t feel they should stay in one place and they are not afraid of moving to new places or even countries. They are also mobile because of their smartphones through which they are connected all the time to those who are important to them and to the information they need.
- They are the future. And as it strikes me, they don’t even know it (fortunately). They just want to use the online word in medicine and healthcare as well.
I’m trying to help them become better doctors who can meet the specific needs of e-patients, the new generation of patients. In this long process, I will make my course totally online this January. So then any students, medical professionals or e-patients could take and finish my course and know more about the medical segments of social media and the entire world wide web.
More details later!
2011 Predictions in Medicine, Healthcare, Technology and Innovation January 4, 2011
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Healthcare, Innovation, List, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Web 2.0.19 comments
I hope everyone survived New Year’s Eve and the first days of work, so it’s just time to share my predictions for 2011 in medicine, healthcare, technology and innovation. I would love to get feedback about any of these points so please tell us what you think!
- This is going to be the year of tablets, and I’m not only talking about the iPad, but also Samsung Galaxy Tab (which I will write about in details soon) and others. New medical and media apps designed only for these tablets will appear.
- As the number of medical websites and the number of people searching for medical resources are both increasing, online medical content curation will become crucially important. See Webicina.com.
- Prezi will keep on developing into a collaborative brainstorm platform besides being the best presentation tool out there. Although there will be an increase in the no slides zone.
- The number of medical mobile apps will increase rapidly (with Android becoming the dominant platform).
- Social media policies about using SM as a medical professional, patient or pharma will be published by authorities and organizations (I’ll try to initiate this process a bit in the next couple of weeks).
- Voice will be a critical interface for mobile and tablet apps. See Siri and Vlingo.
- Second Life has no future as free virtual worlds will become apparent. See Visuland.com.
- Social media analytical services focusing on medicine and healthcare will rise. See Newistic.
- At least one medical school (my prediction is Stanford) will implement digital-only classes without real medical books or materials on paper. Everything (without an exception) will be shared on mobiles or tablets.
- Personalized medicine will almost be there with microlabors, at-home DTC tests, etc. DTC genomic companies such as Pathway Genomics, Navigenics or 23andMe will publish more papers focusing on results obtained from crowdsourcing.
- Force feedback will appear in virtual worlds and telemedical solutions. Imagine apps describing skin conditions which you can touch and feel through the surface of the tool with force feedback. See examples from the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference.
- Empowered patients will keep on developing their own applications and tools for better health management. As it strikes me they don’t want to wait any more for healthcare developers to create useful and relevant apps for them so they will do it themselves. Believe me, a diabetic e-patient can design better apps for diabetes management than any endocrinologists.
- Impact factor will keep on losing its power and importance compared to article level metrics although that is not the solution for measuring scientific value of a particular paper (citation number excluding self-citations should be enough, IMHO).
- All pharma companies will have proper social media presence by the end of 2011 not because it’s good for anyone but because they will think they have to.
- By the end of the year 2011, we will all realize that improving technology and providing the stakeholders of healthcare with proper technology won’t be enough as there must be a balance between the number/complexity of technological solutions we use and the benefits they provide (e.g. having an iPhone itself in a medical practice doesn’t mean it will lead to any kind of benefits).
Health 2.0 News: From WHO to Medical Songs December 15, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Cancer, Health, Health 2.0, List, Medicine 2.0, Music, twitter, Video, Web 2.0, What's on the web?.1 comment so far
AIDS Drugs Lower the Risk of HIV Infection
Synthetic Cell
Blood Test for Alzheimer’s
FDA Approves Botox for Migraines
Taking the Resuscitation Out of CPR
The FDA Restricts Avandia
Blood Test for Heart Attack
Predicting IVF Success
Artificial Ovary
Creating iPS Cells Safer and Faster
If it’s the latter, it may be time to find another doctor. With nearly 90% of online Americans searching the Internet for health resources, it’s likely you and your friends and family already use the Internet to research health issues. It’s true that the web has a jumble of health information, and engaging online takes time, which most health experts don’t have. The good news, however, is that the increasing number of health professionals now embracing the Internet as an important and useful tool for health and wellness is beginning to change your options as a consumer.
Research suggests that regardless of cultural differences, doctors around the world now view the internet as essential to how they practice. And around a fifth can be identified as highly ‘e-reliant’. One of the measures of this is where they get their clinical information, and more than 75% are saying they are getting that information online.
The Hospital Social Network List October 27, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health 2.0, Hospital, List, Web 2.0.2 comments
Ed Bennett has been managed a huge and comprehensive list of US hospitals using social media. In the newest update, Hospital LinkedIn accounts are now also tracked in addition to Twitter, Youtube, Facebbok and Blogs.
Current Stats:
871 Hospitals total
- 421 YouTube Channels
- 679 Facebook pages
- 648 Twitter Accounts
- 417 LinkedIn Accounts
- 94 Blogs
You can also browse by state. The number of hospitals using each account is below:
The Next 10 Years in Medicine: Forbes September 18, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in List, Medicine.add a comment
Forbes magazine came up with a few lists describing what will happen in the next 10 years in different areas. Medicine is one of these:
We asked our staff and contributors to forecast some of the noteworthy events of the next 10 years, a vision of the coming decade sketched from real data, projections and facts whenever possible–though we’ve injected a dose of rigorous science fiction to fill the gaps.
- 2012: Super-Tuberculosis
- 2013: DNA Sequencing Pays
- 2014: Big Pharma Implodes
- 2015: first autism drug
- 2016: first fatherless child using synthetic sperm
- 2017: U.S. life expectancy declines for first time in a century. Doctors blame 55% obesity rate.
- 2020: FDA approves autonomous robot surgery to remove tumors.
The world’s most influential doctors according to Twitter September 13, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Health, Health 2.0, List, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Web 2.0.9 comments
I got the honour to be included in the list of the top 5 doctors in medicine published by The Independent. The list was based on Twitterdoctors.net which uses the Klout algorithm for determining the influence of tweeting doctors.
TwitterDoctors.net updates hourly the influence of doctors tweeting based on their activity, RTs (retweets) and followers. The site began its list at the end of July and boasts “1287 doctors with more joining every day” from around the globe including Australia, Belgium, India, UK, Jamaica, Japan, Colombia and the USA.
On September 7, the top five most influential doctors are:
1. @DRoftheVaJayJay
2. @drdrew
3. @brontyman
4. @Berci
5. @hrana
It doesn’t mean that much, but it’s good to know people like the content I share day by day.
Twitter Doctors: The Most Influental Docs on Twitter July 20, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in List, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, twitter, Web 2.0.5 comments
Twitter Doctors is a new site that lists and ranks all the doctors who are active on Twitter based on number of followers, retweets, etc. Currently, my account (Twitter.com/Berci) is in the top 5, I hope it stays there for a while.
If you are not included in the list, tweet about the website and follow @dawson to be included.
Top 10 Clinical Medicine Blogs with Scienceroll! April 1, 2010
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Blogging, List, Scienceroll, Web 2.0.6 comments
Thanks to Dr. Mike Cadogan, Scienceroll.com is included in the list of the top 10 clinical medicine blogs on blogs.com.
Amazingly comprehensive blog covering all aspects of medical education, medical technology, e-learning and virtual medicine. Through his blog, Dr Bertalan Meskó aims to arm all medical professionals with the e-tools required to meet and manage the next generation of e-patients.
Here is the top 10 list in alphabetical order:
33 charts
Academic Life in Emergency Medicine
Clinical Cases and Images
Clinical Correlations
Dr Shock MD PhD
Life in the Fast Lane
Musings of a Distractible Mind
Science-Based Medicine
Scienceroll
other things amanzi



















