Early in my
EMBA career, I noticed one thing my business school friends all had in
common: 500+ LinkedIn connections. I had WAY less until I became acutely aware
of my embarrassing predicament and quickly got onto my rolodex to amass 500+
contacts. Hew, that was close. Once in a
while I would check out my surgical colleagues’ profiles – some didn’t even
have one. If they did, they were
pictureless, and their average number of connections were in the 2 digits.
What is it
about doctors and their aversion to LinkedIn, or more broadly, social
media? Many offer up a lack of time as
one of the primary reasons why they don’t have a new media or social media
presence. Many don’t see an upside to
having that presence. I was definitely
one who felt that way.
This article
even dissuades physicians from even going on LinkedIn. Physicians feel they are selling themselves
by being on LinkedIn, but the site doesn’t even generate any new patients. What we do get are annoying virtual sales
calls. So the author tells you to go
build out your presence on Doximity, HealthGrades, Vitals, or even Yelp, but
not LinkedIn.
But Kevin
feels differently, as these other sites can give misinformation. Yes, I’ve been a victim of that. So at least in LinkedIn we get to provide our
own accurate CV that’s readily searchable to colleagues and patients alike.
But going
further,
this article
urges young physicians, students/residents/new attendings, to start tweeting. 8 years into practice I doubt I'm still considered young, but these newbies are already told they are late in the
game, so I know I definitely am. I
barely got back on Facebook, and just beefed up my LinkedIn profile, but
Twitter? I thought it was for
celebrities tweeting how normal they are and normal people tweeting how
celebrated they are. And with such bad
grammar. I don't know of ANY of my doc friends who tweet. Maybe I don't have many friends, period. But I learned now that I can
follow professional journals, health policy foundations and/or health care
leaders – a Cliff’s Note’s version of medical updates for busy people!!! I can also use it to network, and voice
opinions and be heard without being a world leader in … anything.
Sounds
great. Maybe after EMBA. Hey, I was being very brave in taking this
course. Technology has never been my
forte – so much so that I had to give up Facebook 10 years ago because I couldn’t
figure out how to navigate the site. But
oh, I have far less fear of technology now, thanks to CBS.
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