The Personal is Professional?

I remember the slogan ' the personal is political' from the feminist movement in the 70's. It has certainly played out in some twisted ways. I find myself wondering, in these toddler days of online social networking, how the blurring of the boundaries between public and private life will play out over the next few decades.

Have you 'googled' yourself recently? Find anything you wouldn't want a prospective employer to see? Patients can google their physicians, students their teachers, and vice versa. I know my curiosity sometimes leads me to information that, I'm probably better off not knowing. If I'm facing a complex surgery how does it affect my peace of mind to know that my surgeon is a big fan of slasher movies?

Things should get even more interesting as new tools like Google Wave emerge which will take email where it has never gone before. Here's a post about it from Roy Tennant's blog, Digital Libraries: "Google Wave" Aims to Transform Online Communication

Apple Developers Converge

They're everywhere you look: nerdy guys (where are the girls?) in black-rimmed glasses, rumpled cotton shirts and cut-off cargo pants, pockets overflowing with what?...stuff. They've descended on San Francisco's Moscone Center to learn about how to develop applications for Apple's iPhone.

And not just a few of them are developing health care apps. They're not dumb, these developers. They know that the percentage of us in the geriatric category will be will be increasing over time and that our physicians will want instant, seamless, anywhere/anytime, HIPAA-compliant transmission of the data necessary to take care of us. I want them to have that...I want my providers to be able see my real-time ECG strip, my MRIs, my lab values, my blood gases, and whatever else they might want want to see. Let 'em see it all, instantly, from wherever the heck they might be.

Take a look at one of the new iPhone apps that will let them do just that.