Best of Medical Blogs - weekly review and blog carnival

The “Best of Medical Blogs - weekly review and blog carnival” is a weekly summary of the best posts from medical blogs. Feel free to send your suggestions to my email at clinicalcases@gmail.com. Best of Medical Blogs (BMB) is published every Tuesday, just like the old Grand Rounds.

No medical social media strategy is complete without a plan for a blog

From Howard J. Luks, MD @hjluks: Google Panda and Penguin Changes are Two More Reasons for Doctors to Blog: Patients naturally use search engines to ask questions, and a blog is a great way to answer those questions. You probably answer the same questions every day in the same way--put it in a blog post! Chances are many potential new patients have the same questions. Putting your answers down in a blog post will actually save you time, and establish you as an authority on the topic. http://goo.gl/PGlSx

What are the ethics of crowdsourcing a diagnosis?

Richmond Doc: There could be great value in using social media as the world’s largest “curbside consult” in which we ask peers to provide suggestions and insight. Crowdsourcing would be like an enormous brainstorming session to help come up with ideas that the primary physician might have overlooked or failed to consider. http://goo.gl/Ez3wj

Robert West comments: Personally, I would prefer to have my own health conditions crowdsourced, than continue forever untreated or improperly treated. Not all people feel the same way, though.

EMR impact: Are we retraining our doctors from care-givers to data providers? 

Dr. Wes @doctorwes describes a doctor completing an EMR: A little box pops up before him asking if he asked the patient about the exercise. He mumbles something under his breath, clicks a little box beneath the question, then moves on. This is what medicine has become: a series of computer queries and measures of clicks. It must be measurable, quantifiable, and justifiable or it didn't happen. Doctors are losing their motivation to diagnose in favor of sitting at a computer. Doctors, I also dare say, are losing their skills in favor of sitting at a computer. http://goo.gl/RrIhz

Publishing a medical journal is a very profitable activity, says former BMJ Editor-in-Chief and provides examples

Richard Smith @Richard56: “I used to be part of running a course for editors of medical journals, and on each course we’d encounter editors, usually distinguished professors, who worked evenings and weekends on journals for free. They did so as a contribution to their specialty and for a dollop of honour. In their naivety they imagined that the journals made little or no money. In fact some scientific journals are considerably more profitable than oilwells.” http://goo.gl/QeaKS

How to Save Time Doing Healthcare Social Media: A Primer for Physicians

Fauquier ENT Blog @FauquierENT: Colleagues of mine often think that I spend HOURS doing social media everyday. Nothing can be further from the truth. Beyond writing blog posts which does take time... I probably spend about 30 minutes daily reading and sharing. Subscribing to RSS feeds can also be used, but I find customized Twitter lists easier. And I automate nearly everything when it comes to sharing to save time. Here are my workhorse applications I use to save me time: Hootsuite, IFTTT, and Bufferapp. http://goo.gl/wIS34

How to Succeed in Residency: Tips for Studying

From the blog Wellness Rounds http://goo.gl/kJ6PN:

1. Record what you learn as you learn it. If you really want to learn clinical medicine, you have to make notes. Go to work every day with blank 3×5 cards in your pocket. (Editor's note: Better yet, make notes on your phone/Google Drive and consider a blog).

2. Be comprehensive. Get a major textbook in your field. (Editor's note: At a minimum, read UpToDate or Medscape Reference [eMedicine]).

3. Stay curious.

3. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Don’t make your notes, file them away and pull them out the week before the in-training exam. Sit down once a week and just glance through them all. Develop a system that lets you review them 24-48 hours after you make the notes, a week later, a month later, and 3 months later. (Editor's note: This really works. Recall information at 1 week, 1 month, 3 month, and if you still need it, 6 month-intervals).

And the last but not least entry in this week's Best of Medical Blogs is: Library’s New Role to Enhance Visibility of Researchers « Laika's MedLibLog http://buff.ly/PeyFYo