Social Media in Hematology
Interview With Dr. Laura C. Michaelis (@lauracmichaelis), MD Clinician and Clinical Researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin
In an interview with Dr. Laura Michaelis, she discusses how social media can be great tool to connect with other patients with the same disease. Dr. Michaelis says social media has really revolutionized the way patients to patients, patients to doctors, and doctors to patients are communicating. Watch the full video below to hear the multitude of ways social media can benefit patients and doctors.
Social Media in Hematology from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
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Andrew Schorr:
I just want to get a show of hands of something for a second. How many of you go on the internet to find information for your MPN? Most everybody. Okay. And one other one. How many of you have connected with other patients, like in social media where you’re somehow part of a discussion? Okay. I just want to talk about it and I know that actually Dr. Michaelis, you actually encourage people. This whole connection, Patient to Patient, you’re a big fan of.
Dr. Michaelis:
Oh yes, absolutely. I actually think social media has really revolutionized the way that patient to patient communication happens, patient to doctor communication happens.
And doctor to patient communication happens. There’s actually a nice paper published out of MD Anderson recently that looked at hematologists and social media Twitter accounts and how people communicate that way. There’s going to be a talk at our national meeting, the American Society of Hematologists, teaching doctors how to use Twitter and use social media not only to talk to one another, but also to talk to patients and also move policy change; policy in certain conditions.
I know a lot of patients who have Facebook groups where they communicate with one another. That can be an invaluable source not only of information but also comradery to take the loneliness out of having a very rare disease where you don’t feel like anybody else knows what you’re going through. We’ve had little town meetings via Twitter where people share information or get communication that way.
I think the sky’s the limit the way that technology is going and how we really branch out from being in our own institutions and just talking to one another within that institution about caring for patients or moving the disease forward. And now we’re looking at a whole different level of communication.
Andrew:
I’ll mention just a couple of resources for you. So first of all, if you happen to be in the PRM-151 trial, this is the queen of a Facebook group for that. And what’s been happening now is on Facebook, if you’re familiar with it, some people are forming pages and groups around the trial they’re in. it’s not the drug company; it’s not even the clinic. It’s the patients actually in the trial. It’s kind of cool, isn’t it? Yeah, it really is. And then a couple of other resources.
There’s one that started in England and is proliferating around the world called HealthUnlocked.com. The folks from England with MPNs, which was started by a peer of theirs, Dr. Claire Harrison in London, she helped working with patients start a group called MPN Voice.
Dr. Michaelis:
Yes, one other thing. I would also recommend there is a national resource called ClinicalTrials.gov. This is available online. This is a completely updated list of clinical trials and you can search it by location or by center.
So if you’re getting your care in Akron, you can look at what clinical trials are available in Ohio, or what clinical trials are available 250 miles from me. And then you can search down by myelofibrosis or PV, etc. So I think that and the clinicaltrials.gov and the NCI also have good information on that.
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