The year was 2004. It was the year Kevin Pho - a board-certified internal medicine physician - launched his blog. Blogging physicians are still uncommon. Sometimes in the exam room, patients would tell him how helpful his blog posts are.
As doctors only get to spend 10-15 minutes with their patients, their questions remain unanswered. Kevin knows there's a need for more medical professionals to influence the online space, provide reliable sources of information, and at the same time clear up a lot of misinformation.
Medical professionals must be present where the patients are, even online. Kevin's platform, KevinMD.com, continues to be the space for health care practitioners and patients alike to share their perspectives and stories.
Kevin Pho discusses how to select reliable information and ignore crappy sources, the value of acknowledging mistakes, and the truth about physicians' lack of empowerment.
Quick Guide:
1:06 Introduction
3:10 Kevin Pho's social media journey
5:46 The need to provide reliable information to patients
9:57 Trends in other industries applied in healthcare
15:17 The echo chambers and how can we know who to trust
18:42 The challenge with people's dogmatic thinking
23:44 A society where admitting that we are wrong is a sign of weakness
25:53 Share stories from each other’s perspectives
33:01 The platform to elevate the voices across the healthcare spectrum
36:17 Burnout and lack of physician empowerment
Get to know our guest:
Kevin Pho is a board-certified internal medicine physician. Known as "the blogging doctor," he started his blog in 2004 and his website remains to be a leading platform for healthcare practitioners and patients to share their stories. He has published a book, “Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices.”
“But after doing this for almost 20 years now, I think one of my strengths is that I'm able to stick with something for a long time now. So, I played on that strength, and that I'm able to be consistent, I'm able to be persistent, despite failures. And that's actually served me well to overcome a lot of the obstacles that I've had during those 20 years.” - Kevin Pho
Connect with him:
Website: https://www.kevinmd.com/
Episode snippets:
05:52 - 06:57 - Patients now search their health condition online
08:33 - 09:16 - As medical practitioners, they have to be present where the patients are
15:37 - 16:36 - Caught in our echo chambers
16:42 - 18:06 - To trust the people who can admit they are wrong or agree on a different point of view
23:49 - 24:42 - The humility to accept that we are wrong
33:40 - 34:57 - What goes on behind the scenes in the health care environment
37:35 - 38:20 - The reality of the lack of physician empowerment
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The Blogging Doctor Behind KevinMD.com