EDITOR’S CORNER
Alfred A. Bove, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, CardioSource WorldNews
Is it Anti-Social to be
Concerned About Social
Media for Physicians?
T
he evolution of communications for physicians remains a work in progress. That
comment is not an age-related opinion:
CSWN contributing columnist Andrew Freeman,
MD, a preventive cardiologist in Denver, CO, is
almost young enough to have never known a world
without online access and he agrees: “We haven’t
figured out how to really use this stuff yet.”
Andrew is the former chair of the ACC Fellows
in Training (FIT) Section Leadership Council and
the former chair of the Early Career Section and
Council and he says, “The future will be when social media lets us connect with our patients directly
—for now it is more of a mass communication tool
and its key benefits are in provider education, news
collection, and commentary as well as public health
messages. While there are some platforms for more
one-on-one connections, these are still not quite at
the level they need to be to provide the best care.”
We’re heading in the right direction: 30 years
ago, before faxing became widespread, communication consisted of telephone calls to transmit
information between physicians and between physicians and patients. Back then, upon returning from
my clinic at 5 PM, I would find slips of paper taped
to my office door, alerting me to calls that needed
answering. I dreaded the note on my door from a
patient who had left a message that he was having
severe chest pain and dyspnea that started an hour
ago; “Please, call back.”
By now, we have trained our office personnel
how to handle such a call, but those little notes on
the door are still with us; they have just changed
“platform” and now flood in digitally. Email started
out being exchanged among physicians and support
staff, then between physicians and patients. We can
now use text messaging via smart phone, to provide instant mobile access to communications—or
something approaching communication if you are
not prolific in IM acronyms.
ACC.org/CSWN
I Have SoMe Concerns
But on R