Blog

Why #FMRevolution Will Explode Next Week

One of the many cool things about twitter is that once in a while, you find a really cool link. Our pal Dave Tran, who is in the last few weeks of Medical School (aka @rollkicksoul), posted some interesting data about the #FMRevolution hashtag.

In the above graph, you see that the first posts of #FMRevolution were just about 3 years ago in 2011. And then, in that time, there have been as much as 4,000 tweets with the hashtag. I gotta tell ya, it looks really cool when the data points are graphed out like this.

Those high points in the graph area associated with conferences with many #FMRevolution people including the AAFP Congress of Delegates (every fall; hashtag #aafpCOD) and the AAFP National Conference of Special Constituencies (every spring; hashtag #aafpNCSC and #aafpALF). I would presume that for other advocacy groups, peak times on twitter are conferences were many advocates attend.

So "Why Will #FMRevolution Explode Next Week?" Well, the reason is that the 2014 AAFP National Conference of Special Constituencies start next week. If I had to guess, this will be the biggest gathering of the #FMRevolution so far in 2014. My bold prediction will be a record number above 5000 #FMRevolution tweets during the course of the meeting next week.

The other interesting #FMRevolution graphic from Symplur is above which shows those who are leaders in "Mentions," "Tweets," and "Impressions." Now, don't get me wrong, we're all on the same team, so the leaders - to me - are not too concerning.

What I'm really impressed with is the statistic of 106 million impressions on twitter in the past 3 years. There have also been 42,790 tweets during that time from 3,834 participants. Those statistics are amazing to me.

It has been very gratifying to watch the community grow in the past couple of years. As I meet Family Physicians at meeting, as I give social media talks around the country, I tell people the #FMRevolution story. The community grows one person at a time by telling our story of why we love Family Medicine and why we love social media to tell that story. Look out Kansas City, the #FMRevolution returns next week!

Why Only 10 Minute Appointments?

ClockClipart.jpg

One of the most common questions that I get is this one: "Hey Doc, why only 10 minute appointments?" I read this fascinating article today from Kaiser Health News dated April 21, 2014 entitled, "15-Minute Visits Take A Toll On The Doctor-Patient Relationship." I definitely encourage you to read it.

I know you're not surprised when I tell you the reason comes down to money. There is an actual formula that the article defines a term called "Relative Value Units" to calculate physician fees. In essence, the formula was how the fifteen minute visit was created.

The article does a great job talking about the plight of the Primary Care Physician. In the 1990s, "Managed Care" came in a cut physician fees significantly. The only way to try to recover these losses, was to increase volume, meaning seeing more patients per hour and per day.

In the last section of the article, it states that having less time for a patient/physician interaction is bad. Duh. Like we didn't know that. Some physicians have solved this problem by leaving all insurances behind. This is what sparked the current Direct Primary Care surge and the associated concierge medicine models.

Other models have popped up as well, including the Patient Centered Medical Home model in which providers are paid a "per member per month" fee and this hopes to relieve the financial strain of the current system, and hopefully gets more time with the physician & patient.

The only way to preserve the Physician/Patient relationship is to try to ensure more appointment time to cultivate and foster this relationship. One thing we do know is that our current system does not do this. Hopefully, with innovative and creative health care models, solutions can be found to gain more time during office visits and improve Physician/Patient communication.

Letterman Retiring in 2015

During his show tonight, David Letterman announced that he would be retiring in 2015. The video link is below which shows the explanation from his show tonight.

Being in high school in the late 1980s, one of the things I looked forward to was to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and then Late Night with David Letterman. The next day, my buddies and I would be repeating the jokes that we heard the night before. Those guys made me imagine about being a funny talk show host, and, in fact, influenced how I do my silly podcasts now.

Late night talk show television has changed so much since my high school days. And, I admit that I don't watch too much of it anymore. However, the influence of Carson & Letterman will be seen in late night talk show hosts of the future, and television will never be the same again....

Mental Illness Vs Gun Control Debate: Again

Last night, twitter sprang into action again announcing another shooting in Fort Hood, Texas. Yes, that Fort Hood. You know, the one where there was an active shooter five years ago where there were 13 dead and more than 30 injuries.

And, just in an instant, the 24 hour cable news cycle changed from obsessed about MH370 to this story. In addition, this morning there was a report of a shooting at Kent State University. Yes, that Kent State University where 44 years ago next month, leaving four students dead and nine others injured.

It is inevitable in the next 24 hours, if it hasn't happened already, that the partisans will take their place again on social media and start blaming the other. One side will say, "We really need more gun control this time!" The other side will say, "We really need more help for the mentally ill this time!"

I have written about guns, the mentally ill, and everything else dozens of times on this website. This post today is not to score political points. This post is again to vent my frustration about actually solving the problem. I blame both political parties and their surrogates who are high on rhetoric but low on solutions.

As everyone says during situations like this: What's it gonna take to try to solve the problem? The press are going to continually mention the list: Fort Hood, Fort Hood again, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and on, and on, and on. What's it gonna take, really?

NephMadness 2014 Preview Podcast

Happy World Kidney Day 2014! Thanks to the guys from NephMadness 2014 for being guests on Episode 326 of the Mike Sevilla Radio Program. In the video above, you'll see the opening moments of the show.

The idea for NephMadness pairs together National Kidney Awareness Month (which is this month of March) and the US NCAA National Basketball tournament (also known as "March Madness"). The beginning of our podcast interview talk about what a "Nephrologist" is and why they are important for patients and the US healthcare system.

We then talked about NephMadness 2014 which begins this Sunday, March 16, 2014 at their NephMadness website. Participants get to select teams who will advance in their "tournament" and you will have the opportunity to select the eventual winner of the tournament.

In NephMadness, you will learn more about the specialty of Nephrology and why kidney function is important - especially for particular diagnoses like Diabetes. Last year, there was a lot of fun on twitter in which people were "trash talking" others and their picks. Follow the fun this year using the hashtag #NephMadness

You can listen to the entire audio podcast interview in the player above and in the player below. You can also download the audio file here and listen anytime to the show. Welcome to those of you clicking over from the NephMadness website. I invite you to check out my website, along with my links on twitter, Facebook, youtube, linked-in, my podcast, and more!

#NephMadness 2014 Preview

I invite you to join me Live on Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 1pm Eastern Daylight Time for Episode 326 of the Mike Sevilla Radio Program. During this show, we will be previewing the #NephMadness 2014 tournament. 

March is National Kidney Month to raise awareness about prevention and detection of kidney disease. In 2011, kidney disease was the ninth leading cause of death in the United States. NephMadness is the fusion of National Kidney Month and the fun of "March Madness" which is the US NCAA Basketball Tournament which determines college basketball's national champion.

My guests on the podcast will be four Nephrologists (physicians who specialize in the kidney): Drs. Joel Topf, Kenar Jhaveri, Matt Sparks, and Edgar Lerma. They are the principal organizers for NephMadness 2014.

During our interview (preview of the interview is above), we discuss the origins of the NephMadness in 2013. We also talk about why these physicians are passionate about their specialty, why more Nephrologists are needed in the future, the impact of the 2013 event, and fully previewing the 2014 event which begins on Sunday, March 16, 2014 at NephMadness.com.

In addition, we also discussed the clinical topic of the latest High Blood Pressure/Hypertension guidelines that were recently announced; And let me tell ya, these guys definitely have opinions about that! So, I hope you can join me LIVE on Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 1pm Eastern Daylight Time at BlogTalkradio.com/DrMikeSevilla to check out our entire interview. Hope to see you then!

#HersheyCME 2014 Wrap-up

I had a fun weekend in Hershey, Pennsylvania last weekend. I was at a conference put on by the great people of the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians (PAFP). Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the entire meeting, but I encourage you to check out their website for full coverage of a jam packed schedule of events.

On Friday, I attended an all day educational session having to do with the complicated topic of Asthma. This was a clinical topic module to help maintain my Board Certification through the American Board of Family Medicine.

On Saturday, I took part in what was called DOT Examiner Training, which was also an all day course. A lot of my patients require paperwork for their employer for what is called a "DOT Physical" or "CDL Physical." "DOT" stands for the US "Department of Transportation" and "CDL" stands for "Commercial Drivers License." Many of the people requiring these are truck drivers.

A little more than 2 months from now, May 21, 2014, to be exact, Medical Examiners (like me) who perform DOT/CDL physical exams need to be certified with the Federal Government, or they can no longer perform these exams. This is a huge change from previous, and many physicians are scrambling to get the required training and take the exam.

This PAFP course has been sold out for months, and it was a long day with lots of material to cover. Kudos to the presenters who did all the preparation for this course! Something that was unique to this DOT Training course was that in addition to the physician presenters, there was also a real truck and a representative of a trucking company at the sessions.

During our lunch break, we got to see some of the tasks that truck drivers perform. This really put things together for me in that I was able to appreciate some of the specific muscle groups that are used during something like getting into and out of a truck, climbing into and out of the back of the truck, and the repetitive muscle actions it takes to shift gears and turn the knobs in the cab.

Going through this course really made me appreciate the labor intensive work that these male and female drivers go through on a day-to-day basis. Thanks to PAFP for putting this course together and bringing the truck along for the course participants.

What follows below are pics from my camera from the meeting. They include the AAFP President Dr. Reid Blackwelder, many from the DOT course, and some from the approximate 300 mile trek across the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Enjoy!