Patient Engagement

Docs find an audience on Periscope

While Twitter-owned Periscope has been in general release only since March — and just since last month as an Android app — a handful of physicians are quickly becoming pros with the video-streaming app.

By Neil Versel on June 23, 2015

Just two weeks ago, the venerable Mayo Clinic broadcast its first test of live video streaming through the Twitter-owned Periscope platform. A week later, Mayo “scoped” a bit of its Health Care Social Media Summit.

Even an organization as large and with as significant a presence on social media as Mayo is calling the broadcasts experimental, and they are. Still, while Twitter-owned Periscope has been in general release only since March — and just since last month as an Android app — a handful of physicians with less-famous organizations are quickly becoming Periscope pros.

As consulting firm WCG highlighted on its blog, Connecticut bariatric surgeon Dr. Neil Floch now hosts “Ask Dr. Floch” Periscope chats nearly daily. “From a medical standpoint, I use Periscope to educate people — specifically on obesity and the world obesity pandemic. I want to give them the true, accurate, medically-supported evidence of what is causing the epidemic,” he told WCG.

Primary care physician Dr. Mark Vaughan of Auburn, Calif., also scopes often; his Twitter profile describes himself as a “Periscope operator.” Vaughan has been known to stream in-office procedures, like the cortisone injection he shared Tuesday, keeping the patient’s face off-camera.

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A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma

A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.

By PurpleLab

Sometimes, though, regular work gets in the way.

Then there is Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt of Orlando, Fla. Robotic surgeon Brahmbhatt and colleague Dr. Sijo Parekattil just wrapped up a cross-country road trip in a Tesla to bring awareness to men’s health issues. Brahmbhatt has been scoping some of the stops on their “Drive for Men’s Health” tour. (Most impressive is that they hit Phoenix just a day after leaving Minneapolis.)

WCG also noted that CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a Periscope user.

Photo: Twitter user @jaminbrahmbhatt