As I'm writing this, it is about an hour before my flight home. The final day of Digital Pharma West 2010 was highlighted (in my opinion), with the panel that included myself and @Doctor_V. This was a great discussion about social media, physicians, and pharma. I'll probably have more to reflect on this discussion as I have more time to reflect on it.
With respect to physicians adoption (or non-adoption) of social media platforms, topics that were talked about include questions like this: How can social media fit into the physician workflow? Everyone knows that time is probably the most prized commodity of the physician's day. And, if any tool (social media or otherwise) cannot effectively and efficiently integrate into the physician daily workflow, then it will not be adopted or implemented.
Other physician barriers to social media, in my opinion, include concerns over privacy (personal physician privacy as well as patient privacy), security of the information, and, of course, liability issues. From the pharma standpoint, it was very interesting hearing how departments like "legal" in their companies can get in the way of innovation and "taking a risk on social media."
I very much appreciated the questions that were asked by the attendees. (You can get a flavor of the discussion by checking out the twitter stream from day 3 - via Phil Baumann)
The final session of the day was called the "Unconference" in which there were about 20 people left. This was kind of a "town hall" type of format in which there was a free flowing discussion wrapping up the meeting. I very much appreciated the discussion here. The pharma people who were left were asking very pointed questions. I really hope this discussion continues.
Finally, I'm thinking about having a live podcast at some point to continue the discussion of how physicians, pharma, and social media would intersect. I wonder if there would be an interest in this - other than my personal interest in this. Leave comments below with feedback. Thanks again to the organizers of Digital Pharma West 2010 for the opportunity to be a part of the meeting!