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.
