Two New Physician Social Media Platforms Come Online

Two new physician social media communities have come online in recent weeks — Roon, and one run by the social media personality Dr. Glaucomflecken — joining a crowded field that includes Doximity, Sermo, and Figure 1.

As existing sites tout large user bases, the new sites are making a hard push for physicians to join them, even though the extent of physician participation in and desire for such communities isn’t clear.

Neurosurgeon Rohan Ramakrishna, MD, co-founder and president of Roon, told MedPage Today that his team is “trying to build incredible infrastructure for doctors to have great conversations, whatever those conversations are going to be.”

Roon counts former Pinterest executives on its founding team, and says some of its goals are connecting doctors who seek answers to clinical questions, sharing insights from medical conferences, networking, and battling burnout. Ramakrishna envisions doctors chatting about book recommendations like they would over a cup of coffee.

Even as artificial intelligence (AI) tools become part of the daily clinical routine, “they can never compete with the fact that medicine is changing on a daily basis, and so physician interpretation … is always going to be needed,” Ramakrishna added.

For ophthalmologist and social media personality Will Flanary, MD, better known as Dr. Glaucomflecken, launching Humor & Humanity in Medicine: A Glaucomflecken Community was about “being able to explore the human side to being a physician,” he told MedPage Today.

“It’s less, let’s talk about the recent journal article, or studies, or research,” he explained. “It’s not just a journal club or grand rounds. It’s more a happy hour.”

The new space, which has a subscription fee of $41 per month, is also meant to be a safe space for physicians to express themselves outside of traditional social media, Flanary said. Having a subscription may help to deter potential bad actors or internet trolls that would be a detriment to the culture the community is aiming to build, he said.

Established Networks

Although Roon and Glaucomflecken’s community are just starting out, other sites rooted in physician social networking have existed for many years and amassed millions of users.

Doximity says it counts more than 3 million clinician members. During the company’s February earnings call, it reported that more than 720,000 clinicians used its workflow tools (telehealth, scheduling, digital fax, and AI) in the October through December quarter.

“I would say something that we’ve learned over the years is that, even something that might logically track and seem like a good idea, you need to make sure that it’s not another bit of work that a clinician needs to do,” Amit Phull, MD, chief clinical experience officer at Doximity, told MedPage Today.

“Joining a network should be a net positive,” Phull said. “It shouldn’t be yet another thing that they have to log into.”

Sermo counts more than 1 million healthcare professionals among its members, Joanna Molke, vice president of marketing, told MedPage Today in an email. Some of its features include Sermo Mobile — where doctors connect with patients for free using a secure, privacy-protected line — and Drug Ratings, where physicians can explore peer perspectives on FDA-approved treatments, she said.

More than 1.5 million verified healthcare professionals are using Figure 1, according to Vincent Muehter, president of its parent company, Formedics. Physicians share de-identified clinical cases, weigh in on diagnoses, discuss patient management approaches, and exchange perspectives with peers across different specialties, he said.

“Activity typically spikes higher around complex, rare, or clinically nuanced patient cases where peer perspective adds value,” Muehter told MedPage Today in an email.

Challenges Old and New

Protecting patient privacy is critical to all of the networks, their leaders said. Muehter emphasized the importance of “strict de-identification standards and moderation protocols to protect patient information before content is published.”

In addition, misinformation is an “industry-wide challenge across digital platforms,” Muehter acknowledged. However, having a verified healthcare community can help to address the threat through accountability, he said. “Members are identifiable professionals engaging with peers, which creates a higher standard for discussion and self-correction.”

Vikram Bhaskaran, co-founder and CEO of Roon, agreed: “If you behave badly, you have to behave badly in front of your colleagues and your peers,” he said. However, he cautioned that “at some scale, you’re going to see bad actors.”

Roon also wants to ensure the platform doesn’t “only skew clinical,” and lose the fun side of physician engagement, Bhaskaran said. Also, “we have to grow fast enough to be useful to every doctor,” he added. That includes expanding beyond the set of specialties they’ve started with, to engaging community-based physicians as well. “A nice challenge for us is to make it accessible.”

Flanary emphasized that all of these online communities are different. “I don’t see it as a competition,” he added, “because everyone is going to be looking for different things.”

“I welcome as many communities out there as people need them,” he said. “And I just think physicians need to be able to connect with each other a little bit better than what we have been doing for the past 5 to 10 years.”

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