Twitter and doctors

By Hannah Brown in A doctor's life on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 @ 13:33

I tweet.  So do millions of other people, and so, it seems, do lots of doctors and the medical community judging by the response to the recent live Twitter surgery from Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit.  1,965 doctors ‘followed’ the live awake craniotomy surgery, with the patient history available at http://www.henryford.com/ and video streaming of the operation on YouTube. 

Anyone could ‘tweet’ a reply to the surgical team, and at all times one surgeon was replying to questions about the procedure, the prognosis, epidemiology of the condition and the progress of the operation.  A fantastic teaching tool, it enabled doctors who might not have seen the procedure performed before to watch it unfold, and for medical students to ask questions without fear of looking stupid.  Henry Ford are planning more live Twitter surgeries over the coming weeks, and are gaining new ‘followers’ every day. 

You can follow them on Twitter: @henryfordnews or follow @PasTest – we’re trying to find all the tweeting medics!