I am a family doctor.
In the past, family doctors and other primary care physicians saw patients in clinic, took care of those patients when they went into the hospital, and sometimes even followed them upon discharge into their homes for home visits.
These days, primary care is essentially outpatient medicine. We have Hospitalists to take care of our patients in the hospital and medical directors of skilled nursing facilities that see our patients in the rehab/transition-to-home setting.
While I very much enjoy my outpatient practice and actually don’t really miss the middle of the night calls to head into the hospital, I do miss the camaraderie with other physicians that this opportunity afforded. No longer do we get to meet the surgeons or internists or medical sub specialists over a sandwich in the doctor’s lounge. No longer do we have an easy opportunity to talk over cases or learn about each other’s lives outside of medicine.
I feel this loss. I think most of us do.
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Social media, for me, has been a way to expand my connections with other physicians and medical specialists. It has been a way to reach out to people of like mind and like passions and cultivate relationships that would otherwise be impossible, given time and distance constraints.
For someone with a lot of ideas in her head about how to make things better (at least in my humble opinion), it has allowed me a platform from which to share my knowledge and expertise on my favorite topic, vaccinations.
It gives a voice to those of us in medicine who want to reach and teach a wider audience.
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My personal passion is for preventive medicine, specifically the way in which vaccination can improve life and health and help us to preserve our wonderful human potential. As a family physician, it has been extremely frustrating seeing patients who are very well-intentioned fall prey to the misinformation and “fake news” that abounds on the Internet.
I use social media as a means to amplify voices of science and reason. When someone searches up a vaccine question, I want physician and scientist voices to be the voices they are hearing.
Social media is an unparalleled way for physicians to reach hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Without it, we are relegated to a one-on-one message in our exam rooms.
What’s frustrating about social media is the same thing that is frustrating about email or any other communication that doesn’t happen in person. Intonation and intention can be lost. And people feel free to behave in ways that they would never (at least, I hope they would never) behave in person.
The impersonal nature of social media gives some permission for bad behavior and physicians speaking up across social media platforms often take the brunt of that bad behavior. This is particularly true of people speaking up in favor of vaccination and gun control, for example.
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I have learned to ignore those voices of hate.
They are the rare ones. Most people out there are merely looking for answers and are respectful and grateful for thoughtful discussion.
I have learned that there are some pretty amazing individuals across this great world of ours who are doing some pretty amazing things. And I have gained incredible insights and made valuable connections and, dare I say, friendships with people that I some day hope to meet IRL.
Social media can be a blessing or a curse.
It can be isolating but it can also bring connection. It is a tool like any other. We just have to know how to use it properly and it can be a wonderful thing.
I have learned to ignore those voices of hate. They are the rare ones.
