This weekend I attended my first “med-tech” conference (Medicine 2.0). What an eye-opening experience it was for me!

I got to meet some phenomenal people whom I never would have otherwise met just by staying in my silo of gastroenterology and esophageal diseases over the last decade.  Many of these people I’d previously “met” online through Twitter. For the most part, that was the extent of our relationship. Nonetheless our interactions on Twitter made the real-life meeting seem completely natural, as if we’d known each other for years.

I also got a rejuvenated exhilaration about advancing my work at the intersection of medicine, technology, and the digital space. It has been somewhat difficult as a junior faculty member at a medical school to get the sense that working at this crossroads could be considered “scholarly” and productive by traditional medical academic standards.

At Med 2.0, I encountered a phenomenal group of innovative physicians, nurses, scientists, informational technologists, and communications experts (among others) who have made this field a major part of their life’s work. Creators of digital apps for medical and educational uses have figured out how to get scholarly production our of their work.

Since medical training and research tends to focus on epidemiology, risk factor modification, and patient care interventions like medications and surgery, Medicine 2.0 helped me realize that there is a lot of valuable scholarly work to be done dealing with the intersection of medicine and digital technology. The collaborations that have emerged as a result of Twitter and Medicine 2.0 will be priceless.

Thank you for letting me be a panelist this weekend and asking me to share my experience over the last 2 years. And thank you for welcoming me into this great community.