I learned a lot at Mayo this week and quickly applied it. I want to share this knowledge with my colleagues but the story would really play more like this:

One day I left my village and travelled to the city. I read many wonderful books and I came back to my village and told the villagers about these books. However they could not see what I learned nor could I show them because books are banned in my village.

I felt like a delegate from North Korea who came to the Mayo Clinic to learn about Social Media. Upon my return home, I was not able to show my country folk the value of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest since my country does not allow access to these sites.

This is the problem I face at my hospital. I want to demonstrate to my colleagues the wonderful things that social media can do for their practice and for medicine and for their patients. The problem is the access to all social media on the Internet at my hospital is blocked. The only way to show them the benefits of social media is by taking them off campus.

Even more laughable is that all emails from my friends at the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media are filtered out by my hospital system spam filters. So much for a two way conversation.

I want to start somewhere, for me it’s the bottom rung. I see a long climb ahead. I am a neophyte in these arenas but I have started my on my own. My employer will not support me and I suspect, some will try to stop me. They cannot stop me from expressing my views. I am not going to make defamatory comments. I do not plan to disclose any medical, personal, or confidential information. I will follow the ethical guidelines for Social Media use as outlined by the Mayo Clinic. Mayo Clinic Social Media Guidelines

Let light shine out of darkness as it says in the Bible 2 Corinthians 4:6