{"id":94620,"date":"2013-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2013\/04\/15\/never-assume-that-what-you-are-seeing-or-experiencing-is-everyone-elses-reality\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:17:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:17:32","slug":"never-assume-that-what-you-are-seeing-or-experiencing-is-everyone-elses-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2013\/04\/15\/never-assume-that-what-you-are-seeing-or-experiencing-is-everyone-elses-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else\u2019s reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atul Gawande<\/a>\u00a0can shine a bright spotlight, even with just a few tweets. On Saturday he linked to an\u00a0article\u00a0<\/a>about new social media guidelines for physicians which states:<\/p>\n\n

Aside from not “friending” patients [on Facebook], the guidelines also recommend the following to physicians:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Don\u2019t use text messaging for medical interactions, even with established patients, except with caution and the patient\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Only use e-mail within the context of an established relationship with a patient, and with that patient\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Establish a professional online profile so that it appears at the top of a web-based search, above any physician rating site.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Discourage e-mail or on-line communications with individuals who are not patients, instead referring them to make an appointment or visit an appropriate health provider.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Manage their digital image, including refraining from posting about personal social activities that might not reflect positively or providing less-than-measured comments on Twitter, blogs, or in response to online articles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

I captured a bit of the online conversation in a Storify, tweaking the title to characterize it more broadly:\u00a0Doctor-patient online communication<\/a>. I didn’t want it to scroll away and be lost, since I think the reactions capture a moment in time.<\/p>\n\n

Speaking of moments in time, I received an email on Saturday from Arash Najibfard, an undergrad at UCSD, who’d found my 2007 interview on NPR, “Patients Turn to the Internet for Health Information<\/a>,” and asked for a link to the 2001 AMA press release warning people about the dangers of going online for health advice. Happily, I saved a print copy of that release and a PDF lives on the e-patients.net blog:<\/p>\n\n

AMA Suggests Resolutions for a Healthy New Year<\/a>\u00a0(December 20, 2001)<\/p>\n\n

One of the recurring themes of my work is to remind people that today is just a moment in time, that things will change — that things\u00a0have changed<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0even if you personally can’t see it yet.<\/p>\n\n

All of these conversations — this weekend’s tweets, the 2007 NPR story, the 2001 press release — are simply snapshots of a certain population at a certain time. Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else’s reality. Look to\u00a0data\u00a0<\/a>to give you a clear picture. Look to leaders in the field to give you a sense of where things are going. And in the case of online communications about health, that sometimes means\u00a0e-patients<\/a>, not clinicians.<\/p>\n\n

I’m not saying who’s right, who’s wrong, or what’s the right policy. I’m saying: Don’t assume. Keep your eyes and ears wide open. That’s what I learned from\u00a0Tom Ferguson, MD<\/a>, one of my teachers, and from my grandmother,\u00a0Rosalie Yerkes Figge<\/a>, who I talk about at the start of the NPR interview. They passed away the same week in April 2006 and I miss them every day.<\/p>\n\n

Join a discussion about this post\u00a0on <\/em> my personal blog<\/em> <\/a> .<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the recurring themes of my work is to remind people that today is just a moment in time, that things will change — that things have changed even if you personally can’t see it yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_api_pending":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_hidden":false,"relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[106,307],"tags":[],"bylines":[976],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[458],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[526],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-94620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-social-media","bylines-susannah-fox","formats-report","research-teams-internet"],"label":false,"post_parent":0,"word_count":482,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2013\/04\/15\/never-assume-that-what-you-are-seeing-or-experiencing-is-everyone-elses-reality\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"report_materials":"","report_pagination":{"current_post":null,"next_post":null,"previous_post":null,"pagination_items":[]},"parent_info":{"parent_title":"Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else\u2019s reality","parent_id":94620},"materialsOrdered":[],"chaptersOrdered":[],"partsOrdered":[],"partsEnabled":false,"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else\u2019s reality","description":"One of the recurring themes of my work is to remind people that today is just a moment in time, that things will change -- that things have changed even if you personally can't see it yet.","og_title":"Never assume that what you are seeing or experiencing is everyone else\u2019s reality","og_description":"One of the recurring themes of my work is to remind people that today is just a moment in time, that things will change -- that things have changed even if you personally can't see it yet.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{"prc-image-alt-text":{"status":"complete","message":"No image blocks in content.","data":null},"prc-about-this-research":{"status":"incomplete","message":"Add an \"About this research\" details block.","data":null},"prc-paragraph-count":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 8 paragraphs.","data":{"count":8}},"prc-internal-link":{"status":"complete","message":"Found 1 internal link.","data":{"count":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"e3f438a9279ef7964e1ddc992db959f5","termId":976}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136683,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94620\/revisions\/136683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"level_of_effort","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/level_of_effort?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"primary_audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/primary_audience?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"information_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/information_type?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=94620"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=94620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}