Update (Feb. 22nd, 2010): Thanks to Kevin, MD for featuring this post on “Twitter and Facebook Can Help Conduct Group Patient Visits”! I’m very honored! Twitter + Group Medical Visits = ? The concept is simple. Group Medical Visits already exist. So: Take 10 minutes at the midpoint of the visit and have everyone tweet [...]

  Photo credit: Aging by BobAuBuchon on Flickr In an archived episode of the always-excellent 1:2:1 podcast from Stanford School of Medicine, Paul Costello and Dr. Laura Carstensen discuss how life is longer than we think. Consider. In the last century, mean life expectancy has increased by twenty years, and yet most of us complain [...]

  Research studies matter. Participants matter. “Personally, you’re fortunate if you can reach 50 percent of your enrollment targets in a study involving children,” Alexander said. “Recently Spectrum looked at Stanford, and 50 percent enrollment was a successful study.” –(Stanford Daily) That quote is painfully true. A recent conversation at the hospital got me thinking [...]

  My favourite online dictionary is, without a doubt, Wordnik. Do you think we need a social dictionary like Wordnik for medicine? Here’s the thing. I’ve always said that the reason I’m not retaining new words is that I don’t really understand how they’re used: Wordnik remedies this problem by providing a plethora of contextual [...]