Another example of the power doctors’ blogs can have

March 10, 2010 By

One of the blogs I follow and enjoy is the China Healthcare Blog. Through them, I learned about this article about the blogs of several doctors in Chengdu, a city in western China which is famous for being where the pandas are.

Some of the doctors’ blogs are getting hundreds of thousands — and even millions — of visitors. They are able to reach and educate people in a way that would otherwise be impossible.

Not long after the 2008 earthquake, Zhang Hujun posted news of the hospital’s food and water shortage on his blog and immediately received a huge response. Within a month, the hospital was receiving daily donations of bottled water and instant noodles from all corners of the city.

Taking advantage of this period of high traffic, Zhang Hujun returned to his “regular job” of posting health tips. He settled arguments, posted essays about foreign popular science, and dispensed advice on how to stay fit, all in straightforward language. His down-to-earth style garnered lots of fans; one essay titled “It’s Possible to Be Poisoned by Drinking Water” received over 300,000 views.

As Damjan Denoble says in his post:

Blogging has the power to better introduce the doctor to her patients and potential patients.   Email, while also a form of electronic text communication, runs into the same problem as face to face meetings – the doctor has little time to put a lot of effort into things like appearance, language softeners, and even smiley faces (I’m a fan of these in non-business emails).  With blogging, the doctor can take time to fully flesh out an opinion or observation, and introduce himself to his patients that way – one carefully conceived thought at a time.

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An inspirational blog: MyHealth Beijing

February 2, 2010 By

When I want to show someone what the ideal doctor’s blog looks like, I point them to MyHealth Beijing. Please take a look. This blog provides us expats living in Beijing with the essential health information that we need to know. Air quality. Food safety. Traditional Chinese Medicine. These are all topics of daily interest to us Beijing expats and I read every post.

MyHealth Beijing belongs to Dr. Richard Saint Cyr, who works at the International Medical Center–Beijing. Soon after I discovered it, the blog went “viral” and soon Dr. Richard was being interviewed and mentioned in some of the major Beijing expat magazines (there are several). I’m sure there are many other equally or better qualified doctors here in Beijing, doctors who have lived here longer than Dr. Richard and whose knowledge and advice I could trust — but I don’t know them. They don’t have blogs. Dr. Richard is my Beijing health authority.

I find it interesting that this is Dr. Richard’s personal blog. It’s not part of the medical group he works for, yet I suspect it’s done wonders to promote the International Medical Center. I’ve always heard Beijing United Family Hospital mentioned as the leading Western-style hospital in Beijing, but I suspect MyHealth Beijing may be helping them get more patients. Before reading Dr. Richard’s blog, I’m not sure I’d ever even heard of the International Medical Center–Beijing; now I’m thinking about joining because I feel I can trust the heath care they provide, simply based on Dr. Richard.

If you’re a doctor, wouldn’t you like to establish this kind of authority and trust in your community?

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Blogs are an essential part of “playing the social game” in today’s world

July 29, 2009 By

I’m reading The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt and came across a fascinating and suggestive couple of paragraphs about brain size and social networks.

Robin Dunbar has demonstrated that within a given group of vertebrate species — primates, carnivores, ungulates, birds, reptiles, or fish — the logarithm of the brain size is almost perfectly proportional to the logarithm of the social group size. In other words, all over the animal kingdom, brains grow to manage larger and larger groups. Social animals are smart animals.

Dunbar points out that chimpanzees live in groups of around thirty, and like all social primates, they spend enormous amounts of time grooming each other. Human beings ought to live in groups of around 150 people, judging from the logarithm of our brain size; and sure enough, studies of hunter-gatherer groups, military units, and city dwellers’ address books suggest that 100 to 150 is the “natural” group size within which people can know just about everyone directly, by name and face, and know how each person is related to everybody else.

One scientist’s research is not settled fact, of course, but this sounds right. And it makes me think of how quickly social media became popular: Sites like FaceBook and LinkedIn became successful so quickly, I think, because they truly suit the needs of our times. We live in a populous world and need to keep track of a never-ending stream of acquaintances, clients, customers, associates, former coworkers, and school friends. Our brains just can’t handle so many connections.

We need extra help.

The thing is, people use these social networking tools to do what people love to do most – talk about people.

Dunbar notes that people do in fact use language primarily to talk about other people — to find out who is doing what to whom, who is coupling with whom, who is fighting with whom. And Dunbar points out that in our ultrasocial species, success is largely a matter of playing the social game well.

Doctors and other medical professionals need to be part of this social game. Otherwise, they’re not part of the discussion – and not in control of their reputation.

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