I recently wrote a paper on social media with some of my colleagues at Kaiser Permanente: Ted Eytan, MD @tedeytan, Rahul Parikh, MD @docrkp, Vince Golla @vincegolla, and Sara Stein, MD @sarasteinmd. In the article, “Social Media and the Health System,” we argue that the benefits of engaging patients and colleagues in social media outweigh potential risks.

The two most common reasons that physicians resist participating on blogs, Twitter and Facebook are: 1. Fear of liability. 2. Lack of compensation for the time invested.

If we would like more physicians to be part of the conversation, then we’ll need to find ways to overcome these barriers.

What has your experience been like interacting with physicians on social media? Is there a place for physicians on sites such as Twitter and Facebook?

For physicians reading this post, you can also join the over 160 others who have commented on this article on Sermo.