Random musings of the dotcom doctor.......

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Social Networking for Doctors



A Social Network is a social structure made of individuals which are tied by some specific type of relations like profession, idea, vision etc., Social Networks play a critical role in our daily lives.

There are many Advantages of joining a Social Network Website

1) You can meet doctors with common interests

2) Free Flow of Ideas

3) Finding a business partner

4) Personal Branding

5) Personal Marketing

6) Exchanging Medical Knowledge

and so ...on...

Social Networking is popularized by websites like Myspace, Facebook, Socify and Orkut.

In this post, I collected all Social Networking websites related to Doctors and not general purpose social networking websites like Myspace etc.,

Social Networking - Doctors

1) DoctorsHangout.com

Description : DoctorsHangout.com is an exclusive next generation social networking service for Medical Students, Residents and Doctors. DoctorsHangout social network can help you maintain existing personal and professional relationships and establish new ones by reaching out to Doctors you've never met before. Doctors Hangout makes it easy to find people who share your hobbies and interests, look for long lasting connections or establish new professional contacts. At DoctorsHangout.com, Doctors exchange clinical experiences, review their cases and share clinical knowledge.


2) Cardiology Network

Description : A Social Network for Cardiologists to build relationships in personal life, clinical practice, career, research and industry.

3) Sermo.com

Description : Here, physicians aggregate observations from their daily practice and then - rapidly and in large numbers - challenge or corroborate each others opinions, accelerating the emergence of trends and new insights on medications, devices and treatments. You can then apply the collective knowledge to achieve better outcomes for your patients.


4) StudentDoctor.net

Description : The Student Doctor Network (SDN) is an independent community of students, advisors, educators, and practicing doctors. Our membership extends from college students to practicing doctors in every field of healthcare, from allopathic medicine to veterinary medicine.


5) Healtheva.com

Description : Healtheva was started to improve communication flow in the life sciences area. Using Healtheva, members can find other doctors or researchers, keep track of colleagues met at conferences, and collaborate on projects with others. In addition, members can upload documents, evaluate and discuss issues in the forums, or start a blog. With increased information flow, together we can improve innovation and knowledge in science and healthcare.


6) DoctorNetworking.com

Description : This is the premier professional networking site for physicians and other professionals in health care. You can Enlarge professional network, Discuss medical topics, Ask and answer medical questions, Post and find medical jobs & Get to know more friends & colleagues.


7) Relaxdoc.com

Description : RelaxDoc.com is a private, online community created exclusively for physicians. It is a highly selective portal for physician-pertinent content, offering physicians the opportunity to network, find information and access services that meet both their professional and personal needs.


8) Tiromed.com

Description : Tiromed is a professional knowledge network exclusively for students of medicine and physicians. The purpose of this network is to facilitate communication not only between peers at the same academic and professional level, but to allow communication between all levels.


9) SocialMD.com

Description : SocialMD is a great new way to network with other physicians. Whether you are a medical student, resident, fellow or physician you will find that SocialMD is a great way to meet and network with other medical professionals.


10) ClinicalVillage.com

Description : ClinicalVillage.com was created to give you the ability to communicate with other clinicians and build an online community where you can share your clinical and life experience with colleagues, ask and answer questions, blog about your current hot button issues, find old college or med school friends, or make new ones. This site depends on you for it’s content and direction. It’s your community, please help build it. Remember, this site has no sponsorship or any other ties to industry.


11) MedicSpeak.com

Description : MedicSpeak is a powerful networking site for Physicians, Biomedical Researchers, Medical/Biomedical Students. The objective is to enhance communication, collaborations, exchange of ideas and sharing of knowledge. Keep in touch with your mentors, colleagues and students. Create clubs and invite people who share your interests.Upload videos about your lab, surgical procedures etc. Have fun!

This is not a comprehensive list of all Social Networking websites for Doctors. If you come across a website which is not included in the above list, please drop a comment to this post and I will include this as early as possible.


Update on 06 June 2007

David Rothman writes on his blog, "Dr. Karuturi also mentions Doctor .VG and the Student Doctor Network. Respectfully, I cannot agree with with Dr. Karuturi that these are social networks in the way that (for example) MySpace or Facebook are social networks. Online Bulletin boards and forums have been around for a long time, and I think what separates online “social networks” from online forums and bulletin boards is that they include tools by which members manage relationships within the network- not just communications."

I do agree with David Rothman that Forums like www.doctor.vg and forums.studentdoctor.net are not social networks in pure terms. When you consider the broad idea of Social Networking, you can include any tools which help us to network socially. I do consider forums as the ancient social networks of Internet as they allowed us to meet new people and interact with them. Now a days Forums are giving us a profile page where you can add your pics, join groups and also create a blog. So you can observe that new forum 2.0 concept is more inclined towards a social networking approach.


References
1. Wikipedia
2. David Rothman Blog

Image Source : Sermo

19 comments:

Dan Schawbel said...

Networking with doctors is quite important because of the knowledge flow and transfer.

Dan Schawbel

www.personalbrandingblog.com

Anonymous said...

I believe Sermo was formed independently of the AMA. Sermo earns its keep by charging organizations for the right to observe the discussion threads. If I'm not mistaken this is the agreement the AMA recently agreed to.

Great blog site!

Anonymous said...

I think you should add Medicspeak.com which is a medical networking for physicians and Medical Students

Anonymous said...

Medicspeak added. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you about the forum 2.0 which is sort of Social Networking , and Discussion board but , Social Networking in the wide concept is building Networks of people , another word it's how every thing start ...
what the forum made for exactly and what the social network made for?

the wide concept consider the main aim/function of the system as it is , not as the addones/plugins and/or modification.

as example : social networking for Doctors , it suppose to list networks of people around the Doctor and in consider of related events :
1-The Graduate place ( Colleagues Network )
2-Working Place.
3-Friends Network .
4-Doctors at the Zone ( town , city )
5-Private community
6-Specialty.

and that we find easily in social networking system .

The Forums : main function is Discussions , of course with some modifications they can do some actions (Not fully 100%) as social Network but ,they still Discussion boards ...

BTW : The article is Great Thanks

doniv said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Hi

I have recently come across www.Health.MD. It is still not live, but I hear of plans of a launch in 2008. Anybody ever seen this site?

RC, MD.

Anonymous said...

Here is the link: http://www.health.md/


RC, MD.

eatmyballs said...

Great article! Makes it difficult to pick one, though.

What is the best network for an Indian Med student desirous of reaching other Indian Medicos and increasing his knowledge? Could someone help me with that?

Dr.Subrahmanyam Karuturi said...

Join http://doctorshangout.com and look out for Indian doctors group in the Groups section.

Anonymous said...

NewDocs.com
If you haven't seen it already, make sure to check out NewDocs.com

This site has figured it out, mixing free online tools, tips and lifestyle resources all in one place. Plus it's cool! This is the MTV of Social Networks for Docs.

NewDocs - Rocks

Anonymous said...

Don't forget to include Ozmosis (https://www.ozmosis.com) and iMedexchange (https://www.imedexchange.com). Both offer a host of tools for information sharing among physicians and Ozmosis in particular rises far above any traditional physician networking site. We should also mention Within3(https://thoughtleaders.within3.com/) but its open to more than just physicians.

Anonymous said...

Also see meraMD.com which is a health portal for India. There is a doctor specific area - for professional netowrking - http://doctors.meramd.com

Unknown said...

British Medical Journal dated 12th Jan 2008 - DoctorWorld.NET, a website started by Dr.Subrahmanyam Karuturi got mentioned in the British Medical Journal. View BMJ article.
-----------------------
pandreson
Social Media Marketing

PRESENTe-Learning Systems News said...

Congratulations on this excellent blog ! PRESENTDiabetes.com is a true social network for diabetes care professionals. It's been running for 22 months and has over 200 CME lectures and over 57,000 members. It is one of the first websites that combines multimedia medical education with CME credit with social networking features in an effort to simulate the experience that medical professionals have when they attend a live clinical conference. It's core features are Lectures, eTalk and Profiling. Check it out at http://presentdiabetes.com

Ambarisha said...

Hi all,
There is another website for Indian doctors and students. http://www.protomedica.net. It's a social network for doctors in India. Registration is free but invite only. It has discussion forum, blogs, groups, also LMS based CME platform. It's a new website online for last 6 months. If anyone wants to become member please contact me. My email id:ambarisha@gmail.com. I thank Dr. Karuturi for this blog. I apologize if I caused any inconvenience to him.

Unknown said...

Check out MedGoline
http://www.medgoline.com

A new kind of a social medical networking company addressing peoples need of information exchange. Focusing on creating a healthy society.

Swing Trading said...

Please insert our website in it, is a docter patient forum
http://www.docterpatient.com

Unknown said...

Hi,

I am final year MBBS student from india.

I hav just launched beta version of a social network site for Doctors. It will be up from 7th June 2009.

Kindly join and review...New features coming up soon....

www.docndoc.com (from June 7th)

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Dr. Subrahmanyam Karuturi

Dr. Subrahmanyam Karuturi , MD, FRSPH (London)

Consultant Physician, Infectious Diseases Specialist and Diabetologist at Kify Hospital

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I am the Founder & Webmaster of Doctors Hangout, Kify, Indian Patient Foundation, IMnotebook, Medical Cavity, IMpedia

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