“It’s best to have your tools with you. If you don’t, you’re apt to find something you didn’t expect and get discouraged.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft The best way for physicians (or anyone) to control their online voice is to create their own content, and the best way for this content to be published is … Read More
The Monkeysphere: Dunbar’s Number and How Many People You Should Follow on Twitter
“More data—such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street—can make you miss the big truck.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile [Update 10/11/2014: Excellent article from The New Yorker on the topic of Dunbar’s nunber: The Limits of Friendship) Twitter has had global impact in ways that never could have been imagined since the first … Read More
Decision Fatigue in Physicians and Medicine: The Importance of Routines and Habits
“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.” — Albert Einstein One of the most mentally fatiguing actions that physicians face on a daily basis is the number of decisions we must make. Although we likely only make one or two major decisions for every patient encounter, in total we make hundreds (or maybe thousands) of decisions … Read More
Social Media and the Tweetups at #ACR13
I was fortunate again this year to attend my sixth American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting (ACR) in San Diego. This year was much different than every other because of the (self-imposed) stress of organizing the #ACR13 tweetups, relating to my goal of trying to spend time meeting with people at medical conferences. I want to thank everyone who attended. Every year the tweetups … Read More
#ACR13 TweetUp – San Diego
Here’s the current plan for our social medial Tweetup for #ACR13 in San Diego: *** updated 10/3/2013 with plan for lunchtime session at Maryjane’s *** *** updated 10/26/2013: Twitter highlights from #ACR13 review course *** This year, we’ll be having two events, in hopes that more people can attend. This is an open event. Anyone interested can attend. You do not … Read More
Welcome ‘The Rheumatologist’ Readers
“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin Welcome to anyone who is here after reading the article “A Rheumatologist’s Tips for Tweeting and Blogging” in the June … Read More
Flat Design and EMRs
“Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.” – Dieter Rams A current trend in software user interface is called flat design, which tries to: Embrace the fact that we are working in a two-dimensional (“flat”) digital workspace (as opposed to a physical item, such as a paper … Read More
Lifelong Learning and Teaching in Medicine
“It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one’s environment.” – Steve Jobs In medicine, we knowingly commit ourselves to lifelong learning. Very early in our medical education, most of us are told that some portion of what we are taught will be found to be incorrect (or … Read More
An Update on Gout Management
Below is a reprint of an article I wrote for Just Joints, an online newsletter for health professionals distributed by the Arthritis Foundation Upper Midwest Region. This article will be posted in the archives eventually, but be sure to check out the other articles in this series. Also, be sure to check out Episode 2 of The Rheumatology Podcast, where we discuss an … Read More
The Rheumatology Podcast is Now Available
“Real Artists Ship” – Steve Jobs “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” – Voltaire The Rheumatology Podcast, hosted by Michael Laccheo, Suleman Bhana, and myself is now available on the website. Update: Now available in iTunes! We also have a Twitter feed @TheRheumPodcast that we’ll be using for updates as well. This is an initial venture into podcasting for all three of … Read More