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CHEN: Medicine in the Age of Twitter  

About 15 years ago, during my residency and just as the first blogs were starting up, I took care of a patient in his mid-40s whom I'll call Eddie. In a waiting room filled with elderly patients crippled by vascular disease, Eddie looked out of place. Until you looked closer at his fingers and toes. Parts of them had been amputated.

Eddie suffered from Buerger's disease . . .

Eddie wanted desperately to quit. Over the two years that I cared for him, he tried at least a dozen times. But his already challenging task was made even more difficult by his isolation. Eddie lived alone, estranged from his family, with friends and co-workers who grew increasingly unsympathetic to his plight. . . .

But his visits to the clinic always seemed to cheer him up. He responded, it seemed, to my encouragement, and each time he left, he renewed his vow to quit smoking. But weeks would pass and his enthusiasm would wane. If I contacted him by phone, his momentum might continue another few days, but finding a mutually convenient, quiet moment to talk on a regular basis was exceedingly difficult. . . .

Social media platforms can turn 10- or 20-minute doctor's visits into an ongoing dialogue, where sources of information and, potentially, support are continually available to the patient and the doctor. "Platforms like Twitter can be powerful if doctors are a lot more active in disseminating their expertise," Dr. Khozin said. "Patients are being bombarded with information online, but I don't think all that information necessarily empowers them. You also need expertise."

Social media has kept me connected with colleagues and a few former patients, allowed me to stay up-to-date with certain health care and medical education issues, and helped me to keep abreast of Web-based resources that might be useful to those I care for. It has also taught me a tremendous amount about the experiences of patients and caregivers, information I'm not sure I would have had access to had I not been engaged online. . . .

Doctor or patient, you are never alone in the twitterverse or blogosphere; there is always someone who is willing to offer some help or lend some support. It's a world that I think might have made all the difference for a patient like Eddie.

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