Internet in Medicine Elective Course: Summary

I launched the world’s first university elective course focusing on internet and medicine for medical, dentistry and pharmacy students in 2008 and now the 4th semester is just over and I thought I would share the material again. Over 130 students, 10 weeks, 20 slideshows. I tried to cover all the important topics in this area.

• 2010 Spring Semester Week 1: Web 2.0 in Medicine
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 2: Medical blogging
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 3: RSS and Microblogging
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 4: Wikipedia and Medical Wikis
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 5: E-patients and Medical Communities
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 6: Virtual Reality in Medicine
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 7: Social Media in Healthcare
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 8: New Media in Medicine and Education 2.0
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 9: Google Story and Medical Search Engines
• 2010 Spring Semester Week 10: Web 3.0, Web 4.0

What I’m most proud of in this semester is that E-Patient Dave sent a personal video message to my students about being an e-patient and what kind of doctors they should become.

Students filled a questionnaire before and after the course and I plan to publish the results in an open access journal during the summer.

See you this September in the next semester with new materials, Prezi.com slideshows and more.

2010 Spring Semester Week 10: Web 3.0, Web 4.0

This is the last week of this semester.

First part of the Prezi.com slideshow: Towards web 3.0

• Buzzwords! (there is no physical difference between web or web 2.0)
• Features of web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0
• Concept of semantic web: example of collecting stamps
• I write documents about all of my stamps and later I want to find stamps with red background
• What to do? I do a search but will find the Red Cross stamp and other stamps that have red in their names but don’t have a red background.
• Solution: tell the computer stamp is a stamp, but red is a colour.
• Give meaning to information.
• Wolfram Alpha medical/clinical examples.
• + OpenID, interoperability (peoplebrowsr.com)
• Powerset.com, Hakia.com, Twine.com, Freebase.com
• What’s next?
• Web 4.0? (glidedigital.com)
• myrl.com, mobile 2.0, internet TV

Take-home message: The story is just about to begin…

Second part of the slideshow: Summary of the last 10 weeks

• 10 weeks – 20 slideshows
• 2 slideshows each week
• 2 major questions in each slideshow
• Examples for all the tools and sites we have talked about. Many many examples.
• This is the first university credit course of its kind in the world.

Take-home message: I hope I could help you on your way towards web 2.0…

Third part of the slideshow: Survey results

• Students filled a survey before and after the course.
• Now I analyzed the results which we will publish in a peer-reviewed journal soon.

2010 Spring Semester Week 9: Google Story and Medical Search Engines

First slideshow: The Google phenomenon

• The first Google search engine in 1998
• The founders, the basic concept, the workplace
• Presenting the best Google applications: News, Groups, Docs, GMail, Images, Google Ads, Scholar, Talk, Youtube, Google Earth, Maps, Calendar, Trends (Flu Trends), Reader, Alerts, Translate, Google Fight

• Also some of the dead ones: Google Lively and Knol
• Talking about 23andme and how our genomic profiles will affect the future of healthcare

Take-home message: Google can make our lives easier. The question is how close we should let it come to us.

Second slideshow: Medical Search Engines

• How to search on the web (Google tricks)

• E-patients search at imedix.com, webmd.com, medgle.com
• Pubmed tricks

• Pubmed Faceoff
• Sciencerollsearch.com
• Biowizard, trend trackers
• Image search (Bing.com), video search
• Semantic concept, chacha.com?

Take-home message: Search like a professional and help your patients search properly online.

2010 Spring Semester Week 8: New Media in Medicine and Education 2.0

First slideshow: New Media in Medicine

• We don’t watch TV on TV any more.
• Statistics about Youtube (pros and cons)
• ustream.tv; Twiddeo.com
• How could a doctor reach the patient? (newspaper, ads, word of mouth)
• How can they reach them now? Through online videos such as scivee.tv, thedoctorschannel.com, emedtv.com
• Podcasts: Is it easier to read or to listen?

• List of best podcasts
• Automatic podcast: Odiogo
• Doctor Radio Show: Doctor Anonymous
• Lifehacks about how to be efficient online

• Being up-to-date: Google Reader, Webicina, Google Alerts, e-mail filters in GMail
• Collaboration: Google Docs, Connotea.org, etc.
• Clinical Cases: Medting, Clinical Cases and Images, Cases Journal
• Conferences: conferencealerts.com, gotomeeting.com
• Tools: Second Life, Google Calendar, podcast
• Twitter tips

Take-home message: Make your online work as efficient and time-saving as possible.

Second slideshow: Education 2.0

• What we have to face: lack of inspiration (educators) and lack of motivation (students)
• But we can find motivation and inspiration online
• e.g. Ted Talks – Ken Robinson

• Why? We’re changing (students, even children use different communication channels) – Vision of students;

• We’re digital natives, Generation Z.
• Many examples, statistics about the problems with education
• “If you want to teach me, you first have to reach me”
• Wikipedia, Quiz.md, mind mapping, Exam General, slideshare, Second Life simulations, thinkanatomy.com, twitter, friendfeed, and many more examples students can use in their studies

Take-home message: The web is full of educational resources. Use them wisely.

2010 Spring Semester Week 7: Social Media in Healthcare

First slideshow: Medical practices online

• What is social media, web 2.0 and the difference between them
• Focusing on 3 topics:
• 1) hospitals in social media
• How Mayo Clinic uses social media

Lee Aase’s slideshow about Mayo Clinic

• 2) doctors promoting practices via social media
• Describing Hello Health

• Why doctors must organize their practices properly?
• Homepage = reputation
• 3) science 2.0
• problems with impact factors and presenting article level metrics

Take-home message: Doctors, hospitals and scientists use social media for different purposes. Find your strategy and the proper tools.

Second slideshow: Collaboration Online

• Collaboration so far: mails, e-mails, etc.
• Now: docs.google.com (how to edit, open, save, publish, etc)
• Zoho.com
• What kind of offline tools we have to substitute online?
• Table = wiki
• White board = Twitter
• Notes = Google Docs
• Talk = Skype
• And many more: Google Groups, blogs, Friedfeed rooms, Ning.com, Flickr.com…
• Sharing examples: writing manuscripts with Google Docs; finding collaborators on Friendfeed.com, etc.

Take-home message: There are no boundaries of collaboration any more.

2010 Spring Semester Week 6: Virtual Reality in Medicine

First slideshow:

• Definition of virtual worlds
• Why do we need a second life?
• community + online games + simulation
• One example is secondlife.com

A shorter version of the original slideshow with my own narration:

• More than 20 million users, 30,000,000 online hours
• What does SL mean for people?
• It used to mean gambling (but not now)
• Game? work? (The number of Second Life residents generating more than $5,000 in monthly income has more than quadrupled to 116 in the past year, according to San Francisco’s Linden Lab, owner of Second Life.); place?; tool?; entertainment?; sport?; opportunity?; appearance?
• Technological barriers: register, download, install, open, log in
• You can fly, walk, teleport, buy, sell, build.
• Communication (chat, IM, e-mail, voice)
• advantages (3D, media content, fast communication – SL fitness)
• disadvantages (reliability, serious hardware requirement)
• why do we need a SL?

Source

• Virtual Reality (VR) examples in therapies

Take-home message: great opportunities for patients and medical professionals as well.

Second slideshow:

• Summary of how Second Life can be used in medicine and healthcare

• How do medical students and physicians use it?
• AMMC
• Imperial College of London
• NHS London
• Scifoo Lives On
• Genome Island and many more
• Patients?
• Healthinfo Island
• Virtual Ability
• SLStroke and many more
• Where to follow health events?

Take-home message: Second Life provides useful tools to organize meetings, educate and learn without borders.

Free e-guide about medicine and virtual worlds on Webicina.

2010 Spring Semester Week 5: E-patients and Medical Communities

First slideshow: The world of e-patients

• Who is a good patient? (referring to I am a good patient, believe it or not; Alejandro R Jadad, Carlos A Rizo, Murray W Enkin; BMJ  2003;326:1293-1295 (14 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7402.1293 )
• Types of patients: the powerful other; external controller, internal controller or google patient or brainsucker or googlers
• An e-patient is equipped, enabled, empowered, engaged, equal and expert.
• Examples (5 stories) including maartensjourney.com and youtube.com/user/geriatric1927
• What do e-patients use? Websites (Web MD), blogs (fightpompe.com, sixuntilme.com); Second Life (Healthinfo Island), services (sugarstats.com or traineo.com)
• Community sites:
• Patientslikeme.com: Featuring the research they’re doing
• imedix.com: real-time chat
• dlife.com: biggest diabetic community
• What to do with medical charts and papers? Introduction to the world of personal health records (Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault).
• How does a community work? I posted a message on Twitter, Kerri replied to it and made a video message for the students.

Many thanks to e-Patient Dave deBronkart who also had his voice heard:

Other videos from e-patients:

• Statistics about how patients use the web (source is Pew Internet Project Survey)
• How to help e-patients as doctors (don’t use jargons, be patient, show credible sites focusing on medically reliable information)
• How to judge the quality of a medical website, step-by-step

Take-home message:

Physicians of the 21st century must be qualified to meet the expectations of e-patients. They’re the new generation of patients.

Second slideshow: Doctors in social media

• What is social media?
• Traditional vs social media (pros and cons)
• I have an opinion and post it online, but others have their own opinions as well
• It becomes hard to find information and we need places/sites where information is collected and selected by other experts and collegues.
• How to find a collegue or get answer for a medical question? By using telephone, Google or Facebook? Certainly not…
• We need medical community sites
• Examples: Tiromed.com, Sermo.com, Nature Network and many more.
• Microblogging (Twitter and Friendfeed)
• Advantages of medical communities, disadvantages

Take-home message:

Without properly designed strategy, don’t even think about using social media in your practice.

2010 Spring Semester Week 4: Wikipedia and Medical Wikis

I’ve been a Wikipedia administrator since 2006 so this topic is really close to my heart. First slideshow is dedicated to Wikipedia issues.

• Facebook + Google + Flickr (=) Wikipedia
• How to build an encyclopedia? Pay professionals? Certainly not.
• I believe in the power of masses.
• Wikipedia statistics, history (Larry Sanger, Jimmy Wales)
• 10 most visited websites in the world: Wikipedia is the 6th one.
• Why is Wikipedia great? (Free, fast, comprehensive, discussions, easy to edit, objective, etc)
• Why it isn’t great. (Almost the same reasons)
• Vandalism and how we fight it: Huggle
• Basics of editing an article; page history, talk pages
• A Wikipedia article minute by minute:

• Basic guidelines: Be bold, objective, no hoax, don’t copy and notability issues
• A few controversies (Seigenthaler in 2005; Congress in 2006; Essjay in 2007)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica vs Wikipedia; my analysis
• Medical Wikiproject, Medicine Portal, article assessment
• Editing process: from a Good Article to a Featured Article
• Sister projects
• Uncyclopedia

Take-home message:

Wikipedia is a great place to start your research, but should never be the last source you finish your research with.

Second slideshow was focusing on medical wikis.

• We need wikis for collaboration, teaching, organizing events, etc.
• Definition of Wiki
• Wikis in plain English:

• Medical wikis, featuring two examples: Askdrwiki and Radiopaedia
• How to launch a wiki on Wetpaint
• Semantic Wikis? Wikiproteins
• Classification of diseases, WHO project
• 3D Wiki = Second Life?

Take-home message:

If you want to share and create content online, a wiki is a great tool to use.

2010 Spring Semester Week 3: RSS and Microblogging

The third week is dedicated to RSS and microblogging. In the first slideshow, I described what RSS is, how to use trend trackers and which tools can help you follow the medical literature easily.

• Before, we had to surf on the web. Now we let the content and information come to us automatically.
• Definition and story of RSS.
• Advantages of RSS (easy to use, free, comprehensive).
• Statistics (medical bloggers tend to read RSS).
• RSS icons.

• How to read RSS (browser; Bloglines; desktop-based readers).
• An example, a real tutorial about how to follow the latest articles published on NEJM. Step by step.
• Best friend of docs? Of course, Pubmed. How to follow Pubmed updates easily.
• What to do when a site doesn’t have RSS feed.
• Biowizard.com and other 3rd party Pubmed tools

• Suggestions about how to use Google Alerts efficiently.

I published a step-by-step guide on Webicina.com about how to keep yourself up-to-date easily.

Take-home message:

Let the information come to you and follow your field of interest easily.

Second slideshow focused on microblogging:

• Definition of Twitter, post, reply, direct message, tweeple, twitterview, etc.
• Good examples in medicine
• How to search on Friendfeed
• How to search on Twitter: tweetscan.com

• If you’re new to Twitter
• Twitter And Health 2.0: A Visual Story
• Follow me on Twitter, if…
• 10 Tips: How to filter discussions on Twitter?
• The Youngest Twitterer and the Future of Health Management
• What you have to know about Twitter
• 10 Reasons Why I Use Twitter
• Tips and Tricks: Is Twitter reliable?

Take-home message:

Twitter is the fastest channel of communication these days, but only use it if you have a well designed strategy.

2010 Spring Semester Week 2: Medical blogging

The second week is always dedicated to the medical blogosphere. Key points of the first slideshow:

• Definition of blog, post, trackback, pingback, comment, tag.
• First blog: Jorn Barger, 1997
• Technorati statistics about the state of the entire blogosphere
• Blogs in plain English:

• Types of blogs and bloggers
• Major medical blogs as examples: Kevin, MD; Medgadget; Sixuntilme; Doctor Anonymous; Street Anatomy.
• Analyzing the results of the study of Ivor Kovic et al. (Examining the Medical Blogosphere: An Online Survey of Medical Bloggers)
• Blog carnivals and microcarnivals
• How to educate with blogs (e.g. Alan J Cann)
• Some examples such as the recent post from Sergey Brin about his genes and the posts it led to (Gene Sherpa, Scienceroll, Discovering Biology in a Digital World)
• Dangers and how to fight them: Honcode, privacy issues, HIPAA, etc.
• The lesson of Dr. Flea
• Future? Streaming your life. E.g.: yongfook.com

In the second slideshow, I described how to start a new blog step-by-step.

• You need to answer 3 questions first before starting a blog:
• What kind of blogger will I be?
• Where should I blog? WordPress.com
• How should I blog?
• My “3 blogging rule” described what you need to become a good blogger: commitment, consistency and openness
• Shared many examples about how to build a successful medical blog.

Take-home message:

A medical blog can be a perfect channel to make new contacts, find new opportunities and share your ideas with the world.

The 2 slideshows are described in details on Webicina.com’s e-guide:

See you next week when we will talk about Twitter in Medicine and also how to keep yourself up-to-date with RSS.