Clinical Trials: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

December 6, 2017 by Leave a Comment

–Trial investigators have lost control of their trials’ messages. Editor’s Note: The following is a lightly edited version of a talk I presented (without slides!) at the CVCT workshop in Washington, DC earlier this week. The topic was the changing role of media in communicating the results of clinical trials. When it comes to the…

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Social Media And Medical Journals: The Streetlight Effect

May 5, 2016 by 3 Comments

–Another study tests the wrong approach to social media in medical publishing    Here’s the main problem with a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association: they measured the wrong thing with the wrong method. In their new paper the researchers randomized new studies appearing in Circulation to receive social promotion…

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Another One Bites The Dust: On The Death Of A Social Media Site For Doctors

June 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Like a certain late lamented parrot, CardioExchange is no more. It has ceased to be. The website was started by the New England Journal of Medicine and the Massachusetts Medical Society more than 5 years ago in the wake of the explosive and ubiquitous growth of social media. But the rise of social media also provoked tremendous uncertainty and even anxiety over its role in…

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Intent To Tweet And A Failure Of Communication

November 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment

For more than 15 years I’ve been trying to figure out how physicians can get involved with social media without devolving into Beliebers. It’s not easy. I often joke that the job is a bit like being the social director on a cruise for people with Asperger’s. But here’s the twist: it’s easy to be the social director on a cruise for sorority sisters…

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2012 In Review: Social Media In Cardiology

December 23, 2012 by 6 Comments

For a whole variety of reasons most cardiologists are not really comfortable diving into social media. For some reason they’re more comfortable remaining poolside, reading Braunwald or the latest mini JACC or Circulation than writing a blog or interacting with each other or their patients on Facebook or Twitter. Most cardiologists who do get their feet wet send out a few…

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Scientific Statement Examines Role Of Social Media In Fighting Childhood Obesity

December 3, 2012 by 1 Comment

Social media may become an important weapon in the battle against childhood obesity, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published in Circulation. However, the statement acknowledges that the evidence so far from published social-media intervention studies has been “mixed” and that social media is also associated with troublesome drawbacks. The statement delivers an overview of…

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YouTube, NEJM, Whitney Houston, and Alpha Male Monkeys

February 23, 2012 by 3 Comments

Take a close look at this screenshot from YouTube (click to expand): Jim Ware, the legendary New England Journal of Medicine biostatistician: 8 views. Jerome Kassirer, Marcia Angell, and Arnold Relman, former NEJM editors: 36, 28, and 257 views. Whitney Elizabeth Houston Funeral Service: 994,920 views. (And how many more Whitney Houston videos do you think…

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