255: The new patients....and the new doctors

Saturday, November 14, 2026
4:45 pm - 6:00 pm

Room: BALLRM-ABC

Chairs: Fernando Heredia

Faculty:

Description: This MedTalk dives into a clinical reality many of us are facing—one that's changing how care is requested, offered, and delivered. We're meeting "new patients": women empowered by unprecedented access to information—much of it shaped by social media. That empowerment can be powerful. But it can also be risky when misinformation (or deliberate deception) turns a smartphone into a shortcut to diagnoses, treatments, and even surgeries that were never truly needed. And we're also becoming "new doctors": clinicians navigating a landscape where visibility can be mistaken for expertise. Where a few successful cases can be amplified into authority. Where marketing, paid "certifications," and online popularity can distort what excellence really looks like. And where we increasingly inherit complex cases—patients previously operated on by pseudo-experts, with predictable technical challenges and poorer outcomes. In this MedTalk, I explore how we can stay grounded between both extremes of the doctor–patient paradigm—protecting trust, prioritizing evidence, and keeping medicine human in an age of algorithms.

Objective #1: Understand the emerging clinical landscape both for patients and physicians: Describe how social-media–driven information is changing how patients request, interpret, and decide on care—highlighting the risks of misinformation, manipulation, and unnecessary treatments.
Objective #2: Examine the impact on physicians and care quality Analyze how "visibility-based medicine" (branding, paid marketing, pseudo-certifications, popularity) can be mistaken for expertise, shaping expectations and contributing to complex referrals and poorer outcomes after suboptimal procedures.
Objective #3: Build a practical framework to stay grounded Provide principles and actionable strategies to balance empowerment with evidence—strengthening shared decision-making, protecting trust, and keeping care ethical and human in the age of algorithms.
Medtalk Presenter: Fernando Heredia

Learning Objectives: At the end of this course, the participant will be able to:

1. Understand the emerging clinical landscape both for patients and physicians: Describe how social-media–driven information is changing how patients request, interpret, and decide on care—highlighting the risks of misinformation, manipulation, and unnecessary treatments.
2. Examine the impact on physicians and care quality Analyze how "visibility-based medicine" (branding, paid marketing, pseudo-certifications, popularity) can be mistaken for expertise, shaping expectations and contributing to complex referrals and poorer outcomes after suboptimal procedures.
3. Build a practical framework to stay grounded Provide principles and actionable strategies to balance empowerment with evidence—strengthening shared decision-making, protecting trust, and keeping care ethical and human in the age of algorithms.