Accept the @AAFPPrez Challenge

Dr. Wanda Filer was just installed as the 2015-16 President of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). Dr. Filer shared some remarks at the Denver Convention Center yesterday. I invite you to check out the twitter highlights from the talk at this link.

During her remarks, Dr. Filer challenged those in attendance, along with all AAFP members, to tell the story of Family Medicine not only online, but also in person as well to your local community. I was contacted to be on the Get Social Health podcast which was recorded on September 30, 2015. You can see a portion of the podcast at this link and in the video below.

I accepted the @AAFPPrez challenge to share the story of Family Medicine and #FMRevolution. I extend the same challenge to all of my Family Medicine friends. If you let others tell the story of Family Medicine, it will be the wrong story. Use platforms, like social media, to share your story as a Family Physician, and share why #FMRevolution is important for the United States. As Dr. Filer closed her remarks today. "Let's Roll!"

Dr. Wanda Filer & Dr. Jay Lee on Social Media Leadership

Thanks so much to my guests, Dr. Wanda Filer, Incoming President of the American Academy of Family Physicians , and Dr. Jay Lee, Current President of the California Academy of Family Physicians, for being on Episode 338 of The Mike Sevilla Radio Program.

The topic of our conversation is Social Media Leadership in Family Medicine. This latest conversation was sparked by an article entitled, "20 Doctors You Should Be Following On Twitter," from Health Works Collective from August 14, 2015. The cool part of this article was that most of the physicians are on this list are Family Physicians, and, in my opinion, part of #FMRevolution, also known as Family Medicine Revolution.

Here's a break down of our conversation:

• My Opening Remarks (0:00)
• Introduction of Dr. Filer and Dr. Lee (6:40)
• Why Family Medicine? What do you love about your job? (7:21)
• The importance of using traditional media (like television) for messaging and asking Dr. Filer about her experience using television media (10:46)
• Dr. Lee talks about Media Training Programs at the importance of using traditional media for messaging (14:24)
• Reaction to the Health Works Collective article (19:20)
• Dr. Filer talks about using digital communication and social media for messaging (22:49)
• Dr. Lee and I discuss our first AAFP meetings using twitter and the growth of using social media by the AAFP and AAFP leadership (24:28)
• Dr. Lee talks about how the California Academy of Family Physicians utilized social media to help pass legislation at the state house (27:13)
• Dr. Filer gives some behind the scenes and rationale for her appearance on The Doctor Oz Show earlier this year (29:42)
• Dr. Filer outlines the upcoming AAFP Congress of Delegates (#AAFPCOD) meeting (32:46)
• Dr. Lee outlines the upcoming AAFP Family Medicine Experience (#AAFPFMX) conference (34:18)
• Closing Question for Dr. Lee: Why is digital communication and social media important? (36:20)
• Closing Question for Dr. Filer: Why is Family Medicine important to our country? Why should everyone from the general public to those in Washington, DC - why should they listen to Family Medicine? (38:23)

#GOPDebate Re-Ignites Vaccine Debate

The #GOPDebate on September 16, 2015 on CNN seems to have re-ignited the vaccine discussion once again. GOP frontrunner, Donald Trump stated, "A child went to gave the vaccine, got very, very sick, and now is autistic." Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon stated that there could still be a link between vaccinations and autism, "It has not been adequately revealed to the public what's actually going on." Rand Paul, and ophthalmologist, formerly had a similar view, but backed away from that stance (The Hill). See more in the video below.

Why are we having this debate again? Hasn't this been settled by now? Both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine advocates took to twitter to fight it out (again). On my twitter stream, I shared the photo at the top of this post - This was me earlier this week getting my flu shot. In addition, I shared on my twitter stream these Pro-Vaccine articles:

• Scientific American: Fact or Fiction?: Vaccines Are Dangerous - Overwhelming medical evidence proves that negative side effects are rare and minor
• New York Times: Not Up For Debate: The Science Behind Vaccination
• CNN: 5 Myths Surrounding Vaccines - And The Reality

Now, this didn't stop a few anti-vax people from coming after me on twitter. It was quite amusing, let me tell ya...

Of course, I favorited some of these tweets to share with all of you. I just wanted to let you know that the anti-vax crowd is still out there, and they use media events like this to try to further their point of view. Well, the pro-vaccine community must do the same thing. I saw organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics respond to the GOP debate like this:

"The American Academy of Pediatrics would like to correct false statements made during the Republican presidential debate last night regarding vaccines. Claims that vaccines are linked to autism, or are unsafe when administered according to the recommended schedule, have been disproven by a robust body of medical literature. It is dangerous to public health to suggest otherwise. 

 “There is no ‘alternative’ immunization schedule. Delaying vaccines only leaves a child at risk of disease for a longer period of time; it does not make vaccinating safer. 

“Vaccines work, plain and simple. Vaccines are one of the safest, most effective and most important medical innovations of our time. Pediatricians partner with parents to provide what is best for their child, and what is best is for children to be fully vaccinated."

Hey Anti-Vaxers! It's not 1998 anymore. That study was debunked. We have the science on our side. The Pro-Vaccine community was not ready in those pre-social media days back at that time to combat the rhetoric and the fear mongering that was happening. But, we are more than ready now! We can and we should spread our message that Vaccines are Safe, Vaccines are Effective, and Vaccines Save Lives.

For those who know vaccines are helpful, and not harmful, and especially those of you in the medical community, we have to stand up and spread our message on social media. If we do not stand up for what we believe, then who will? I passionately talked about that in my Tedx talk on January 23, 2015 which was just in the midst of the Disneyland Measles outbreak. Check it out above and #BeTheChange

#NursesUnite Responds to "The View" On Social Media

Don't mess with nurses! At least, this is what the TV show "The View" is learning. On the September 14, 2015 show, The View co-host Michelle Collins poked fun at the monologue of Miss Colorado Kelley Johnson, who is a nurse. You can see the video below in which Miss Colorado shared a 2 minute monologue in which she shares her story about working in the nursing profession.

The View co-host stated in this monologue, "she basically read her e-mails aloud - and shockingly did not win." She goes on to say, "She helps patients with Alzheimers, which is not funny, but you had to see it." Joy Behar then chimes in, "Why does she have a doctor's stethoscope around her neck?" See more below...

This is when the internet erupted. Nurses, and those who support them, took to the internet to express their anger at the show, and also to be advocates for nurses and the nursing profession. They included the twitter posts below...

I also invite you to check out the picture at the top of this post which is a photo (with his stethoscope) of my friend Sean Dent. And on his Facebook page, that photo has been viewed (as of this posting), it has been viewed more than 16,000 times with over 800 likes, and over 100 shares. And, this was only after 7 hours after it was posted. Then, the hashtag #NursesUnite began trending on twitter and Facebook...

On the evening of September 15, 2015, my two good friends, Sean Dent and Emily Bennett took to the video airwaves, on their program called, "The Change Of Shift," to express their feelings and to respond to The View. I invite you to check out their program below.

What are the lessons here? First, do not, do not, do not, mess with nurses. Second, you really have to be careful what you say on live television these days, because with social media, people will find out about it very quickly, and they will respond. And, third, I cannot say enough how much I support my nurse colleagues. Shout out to all the nurses out there! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do for patients!

Update: What follows below is the "apology" from "The View" from their September 16, 2015 show. Apparently everyone was listening wrong when they were speaking their comments, and we have to do a better job at listening. Why do I foresee, the #NursesUnite group taking to social media again today about this "Sorry/Not Sorry apology," Stay tuned!

Update: Apparently, the apology didn't work. On September 17th, sponsors including Johnson & Johnson "paused our advertising." Click on the graphic below to read the entire article.

The Roundtable on Blab.IM: September 12, 2015

Had a lot of fun this past Saturday night with my friends Sean and Drew talking on a variety of topics on the video platform called Blab.IM. In addition to video, you can listen to the audio podcast in the player below, and you can also download the audio podcast at this link.

Topic One (2:53): Sean, Drew and I discussed and recapped the September 9, 2015 Apple Event in which the iPhone 6S, Apple TV, and iPad Pro were introduced.

Topic Two (28:03): When is it ok to record your doctor's instructions on your smart phone? Sean, Drew, and I discuss this article. 

Topic Three (39:43): An interesting end to the program, viewer @Darius joined me to further discuss the previous Apple event.

I'm really enjoying this Blab platform. However, I still see a role for Google Hangouts, Periscope, and even the audio podcast. [Please iTunes subscribe to my audio podcast (or RSS feed subscribe), because I see some exciting things happening soon with that - Hint, hint lol] What a great time in social media these days. Hope you enjoy the program!

The Roundtable on Blab.IM for September 7, 2015

Had a great discussion tonight on the Blab.IM platform with my friends Drew Griffin and Sean Dent. We talked about Medicine and Technology on a show that I'm calling (for now) - The Roundtable.

Topic One (2:02): The upcoming Apple Event for September 9, 2015 where it is anticipated that the Apple 6S phone will be announced. I talked about this article from The Verge

Topic Two (27:58): Drew talked about this article entitled "The accidental cure for cancer potentially found as medical trials begin to test it on humans." What could be used to treat cancer? Check out the article and see our discussion on it.

Topic Three (39:49): Sean talked about the re-boot of a classic nursing blog carnival called Change of Shift. We also talked about the use of medicine in social media.

Probably the most fun was not recorded - it was during the preshow, and during the post show. The lucky people on the post show saw our friend Emily Bennett check in and gave us some great ideas for future shows.

Enjoy the replays on the Blab video and YouTube video below. In addition, I also invite you to check out the audio podcast player below, and you can even download the audio podcast here. Enjoy!

Blab.IM for Medical Education, Advocacy, and Conferences

In the past few months, mobile live video streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat have been all the rage. I've also been experimenting with Google Hangouts recently, and in the past, I've used platforms like ustream and livestream.

But, tonight on twitter, I think that the next big thing has found me. It's called Blab.IM and it's a combination of periscope, hangouts, and twitter. You can see from the picture above, there are four people who can video chat at the same time. There is also a live chat room, a twitter stream, and the ability to record these sessions with the ability to post on platforms like youtube.

My mind then started racing about the potential implications for Medical Education and for Advocacy. First of all, it's mobile, and this expands the potential audience for this chat to worldwide. Secondly, the root of this is on twitter, where there a lot more people on; and not google hangouts, for which there are less people on. Finally, unlike periscope and meerkat, the video and audio is on the blab.im site indefinitely, and not for a limited time.

In doing research, I found the video below about blab.im. In addition, I found a resource called "The Ultimate Guide to Blab.IM" by Marc Levy. There is also this article from Mashable. It's really cool that you can mark a "Question" in the chat stream. In addition, you can give "+1" to comments and the equivalent of "hearts" from periscope. There is so much functionality here, it will be fun to explore.

One thing that I look forward using this platform is at live events like medical conferences. How fun would it be to give live video updates from conferences, even with people at the conference. This was something challenging to do with hangouts, periscope, and meerkat. In addition, people can "call" in from off site and chat with us. The video stream is pretty solid and the audio stream really holds up well. I'll be curious about how the post audio and video files look like.

I pulled the slide above from a blog post entitled "Blab Tutorial: To Blab or Not To Blab, That is the Question" by Ian Cleary from RazorSocial. Other interesting questions brought up in this article include: Is Blab going to take over Google Hangouts? Hm...

You can see an example of a blab at this link from the business world entitled "Blab for Customer Service and Social." But, you can really see the potential for Medical Education, Advocacy, and Medical Conferences, can't you? If any one of my peeps out there want to jump in and help me experiment with this, let me know. I think this is going to be very exciting!

Previewing #Polaris15 Conference

The 2015 Family Medicine Global Health Workshop will be taking place on October 1-4, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. On August 9, 2015, I had a great conversation with my guests Dr. Kyle Hoedebecke and Dr. Maria Colon on a variety of topics.

We talked about the WONCA (World Organization of Family Doctors) Polaris Pre-conference to take place on October 1st which is the day prior to the Global Health Workshop. We also talked about Maria going to France and presenting on their Balint 2.0 project. It's so exciting that the WONCA President, Dr. Michael Kidd from Australia, will be attendance at the Global Health Workshop and Polaris Pre-Conference. Check out our conversation below. Enjoy!

Revolution, Sharing Stories, and Friends Forever: Lessons from #APA2015

As I sit here from my #APA2015 hotel, watching Toronto Argonauts football I wanted to try to capture some thoughts following a fascinating day here in Toronto at the 2015 American Psychological Association Annual Meeting. I have learned three big picture lessons from my time here at #APA2015...

Lesson One: We Need Many Revolutions....

It's so cliche to say "We Need A Revolution" to move the hearts and minds of people to bring about change. But, in my years of doing advocacy work, the word "revolution" really reaches people and hits the right emotional nerve.

Many people have been saying that "We Need A Revolution" in health care. But, what it's really going to take is each community and each stakeholder group needs to have their own little internal revolution first. And then, through the synergy of this passion and drive, maybe something substantial will be done.

Kerri Sparling is part of the first health care change revolution that I was aware of - This is known as the "E-Patient Movement" in which very motivated patients like Dave DeBronkart, i.e. "E-Patient Dave, " they are taking control of their own health care and challenging the health care establishment to give them better care.

My own Family Medicine community is trying to rally our troops by declaring a Family Medicine Revolution, better known as #FMRevolution on twitter. Goals of this movement are to show the Value of Family Medicine to our communities and to our legislators to bring about things like better health care delivery models, like Patient Centered Medical Home and Direct Primary Care. In addition, we're advocating the exploration and implementation of new health care payment models like moving from episodic fee-for-service care to payment for quality of care.

The plenary talk I saw Ben Miller give at the American Psychological Association Annual Meeting was amazing (see pic above). Through energy, passion, data, and stories, Ben is challenging his own discipline of psychology to look within themselves and not settle for the status quo. "We (as psychologists) should not let our discipline be defined by "The Couch," he said. ("The Couch" is the stereotypical place where mental health patients receive care by psychologists.) Ben continued, "We are better than that. We have to define our discipline by assuring the public that we can deliver a complexity of care that we have been trained to do. The time is now. We cannot be left behind." What a powerful call to action.

Lesson Two: Want Revolution? Decide if you need data, or stories, or both...

To bring about revolution, you first have to define your goals and what do you want to accomplish. This will define your strategy. To win the hearts and minds of people, it has been shown time and time again that powerful stories can help to bring your point across.

What I have seen is that to try to inspire revolution in your own community, sharing data with community leaders is the next step to try to "bring your own house in order." For Family Medicine, hearing about and showing things like the decreasing medical student interest in the specialty, the increasing difficulty of patients to have and to hold health insurance, and showing the increasing fragmentation of the health care delivery system - all these and a lot more data have helped to spur on the Family Medicine Revolution.

However, in the area of health policy and in the area of legislative change, you really need a balance of both powerful stories and data people can understand - to even attempt to bring about change. I have heard this for years from my colleagues at meetings like the Family Medicine Congressional Conference, but I really didn't believe it until now. Kerri Sparling said during our session, "When we (as patient advocates) lobby on Capitol Hill, we bring our sob stories, but what would really help is data to help support our stories." That statement really solidified it for me.

Lesson Three: You need Revolutionary Friends...

"You cannot bring about change by yourself," Ben Miller told his fellow psychologists during his plenary session. "We need to be creative and look for opportunities for partnerships, like with our patients, and then we can start to work together on common issues." Sound familiar? Patient advocacy groups, FMRevolution groups, and other groups have been saying this for years.

My thanks to Ben Miller and to the American Psychological Association for the opportunity to speak and to share my Family Medicine and Primary Care story. Thanks to Kerri Sparling for being an inspiration to me an to others in sharing her story. Did you know that Kerri was one of the first people that I met online when I started blogging around ten years ago? She knew me way back in the "Doctor Anonymous" days and it was so much fun talking about those "old days" and reminiscing about our social media journeys.

There is so much more I learned from this brief time at the conference, but those are the highlights. I did video record my sessions. I have to check to see how the video and how the audio worked out. Hopefully, I'll share these sessions with you on my youtube channel soon. Hope you had a great weekend!

Speaking at #APA2015: Primary Care, the Patient Story, and Mental Health

I'm here in Toronto, Canada at the 2015 American Psychological Association annual meeting. Ive been asked by my friend Dr. Ben Miller, to take part in this panel presentation along with Kerri Sparling, patient advocate and founder of SixUntilMe.com.

Our presentations this afternoon at #APA2015 will be talking about the intersection of Primary Care, the Patient Story, Mental Health, and Health Policy. The first session is entitled "Desire Lines in Healthcare: Design With The End In Mind." The second session is entitled "Advancing Health Policy Change Through Patient Stories And Data."

I've never been at an APA conference in the past, and talking with people at the conference, it is difference, but similar discussions to what we have in our Family Medicine community. All of us agree that we need a better healthcare delivery system to deliver better health care.

I'm going to try to record the presentations to share with all of you. In addition, I haven't been to Toronto in a long time, and I will try to take in some of the tourist sights while I'm here. The photo above was taken at the Momofoku Toronto restaurant (really interesting food, let me tell ya). Hope you're having a super weekend!