Medical Faculty Becoming Interested in Web 2.0

Recently, I have had several clinical faculty from the UBC Faculty of Medicine come to me to express their interest in exploring social software and various web 2.0 tools.

Quite often, physicians and I begin with a discussion of what social software is – and what does it have to do with web 2.0? But my sense is that many members of the Vancouver hospital and medical community are reaching a point where they want to explore these tools – perhaps we have reached a critical mass of interest in digital networking and collaboration?

One UBC medical faculty who is an advocate of mobile devices, Dr. Kendall Ho, has several projects on the go. His projects look at mobiles – like the iPhone specifically – but I surmise that he is examining how to use social software in the context of medical education as well. I would like to meet more early adopters like Kendall.

In any case, some of the questions that I am getting from physicians include:

1. How can we use social software to facilitate more collaboration among students?

2. How will we encourage the medical faculty to use these tools?

3. What software tools are the most conducive to collaboration and social networking?

4. What about immersive environments and virtual reality? How are these trends implicated in the discourse around medical education?

5. How do we introduce these concepts into clinical practice?

I wish I had all the answers to these questions. I think a good place to start is to read the available literature on social software and medicine. If you don’t want to use the term ‘Web 2.0’, that’s fine too. The focus is on how we can work together, how we can overcome barriers to collaboration and how we can manage information, ideas and insight more efficiently in the digital age.

Suggestions (from health librarians or physicians) are most welcome!