Rob Lamberts, ACP Member, has blogged about the best ways to annoy your doctor, the insanity of hemorrhoid cream costing $100 and the difficulties involved in treating anxiety-prone patients. He’s discussed some of the heart-rending complexities of caring for long-time patients who have lost their insurance coverage.

 

  Dr. Lamberts’ words aren’t just vanishing into cyberspace. His blog, Musings of a Distractible Mind, gets about 20,000 visitors who view 50,000 pages a month, according to his own analytics data. By the end of 2009, his list of Twitter followers numbered nearly 1,500 and counting.

 

  The Georgia internist and pediatrician, whose blog incorporates haiku and other more comedic touches, admitted that initially he was “very conscious” that some of his patients were sifting through his posts. “Then I decided, you know what, that’s kind of how I am with my patients anyway. I’m open with my patients. I want my patients to see me as a guy who just happens to be a doctor.”

 

  Today’s physicians have an ever-expanding number of social media vehicles through which to express themselves. Tools like Twitter, Facebook and blogging can potentially help physicians better educate and interact with patients, perhaps even humanizing themselves in the process. But mishandling that powerful online megaphone can potentially risk, or at the very least blur, the doctor-patient relationship, according to social media-savvy physicians.

 

  Depending on what you share and how widely, your patients may know your marital status, your political views, where you went on your last vacation and your stress level on a given day. In short, social media allows patients to connect with you in ways that reverberate far beyond the exam room itself, said Lindsay Thompson, MD, MS, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine in Gainesville. “I think it’s an emerging and interesting field with some worry points,” she said. Contact for complete article.