Lately, I'm seeing a disturbing trend on Twitter: people copying someone else's tweets and presenting them as their own.  I'm not talking about retweeting.  Retweeting references the author of the original tweet, either with "RT" or "via" and the author's name or handle.  Retweeting is a sign of respect.  It serves to not only propagate ideas, but lends weight to them with every post.   

Yes, 140 characters is a limited space.  Sometimes editing has to occur.  However, the author's name is the one item which should never be omitted.

Intention is irrelevant.  Omissions of ignorance damage the shared creative process which supports and nurtures us all, as much as deliberate presentation of another's idea as our own.

Both the Health 2.0 and Government 2.0 movements are focused on transformation.  Our ideas and thoughts are our resources and capitol.  They are the discoveries which drive innovation.  Viewed in this light, we are scientists and entrepreneurs.

However, we are also activists.  We are not creating ideas, as much as we are creating change.  Shirky said "revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technology, it happens when society adopts new behaviors."

When we support each other, we achieve so much more collectively, than we could as the sum of our individual efforts.  We are pushing forward; disrupting and creating.  Together.

Be proud to be an information source, as well as a creator.  Don't remove someone's name from their tweet.

A recent study published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics found that young physicians overwhelmingly turn to Google and Wikipedia when searching for clinical information.  There isn't even a peer-reviewed resource in the top 3.   PubMed, largest biomedical literature database in the world, doesn't even make the top 5.

At first glance, this appears quite frightening.  It conjures images of an exam where your physician stops and says, "Now is this benign or malignant? Let me check Wikipedia first."  As an aside, I wonder how many physicians now have patients telling them, "I'm not sure if this is the best course of treatment. I read on Wikipedia that..."

Regardless, conclusions cannot be drawn from merely looking at resource choice.  Physicians undergo years of rigorous training.  Residency is notoriously brutal.  By the time a physician is in practice, he or she is a walking medical encyclopedia, attached to a neural network with the most advanced semantic and natural language processing algorithms in existence, which has the ability to learn and adapt based on personal and shared experiences.  And, they have taken the Hippocratic Oath, a feature that has yet to be incorporated into any medical decision-support system of which I am aware.

Perhaps these young physicians are simply using the the search tools they find most effective.  In the study, respondants cited accessibility to up to date information and ease of use are primary motivations.  Should a physician be questioned for choosing Google as a search engine, when 72% of the U.S. market does as well.  Additionally, large corporations, academic institutions, hospitals, as well as state and federal agencies use Google search technology.

The more precise question may be, "What is the physician's final source for information?"  Google Search provides links and exerpts, not the information itself.

Perhaps, these physicians are looking for something else.  What do 4 of the 5 top choices for young physicians have in common?  Answer - They foster an online community through enabling contribution and discussion.

That will be the topic of the next post, "The New Triumvirate in Research."