Reflections on rheumatology, twitter and humanity
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I have written about medical and rheumatology Twitter many times in these pages and, despite the assault on the platform by its new owner, remain cautiously committed to continuing my on-and-off-again participation.
As I have noted before, Twitter is the platform that allows for the most rapid dissemination of new data. On Twitter, these data are most valued when shared by key opinion leaders whom I trust.
For instance, when I see an article and a thumbs up from people like Drs. Jack Cush (@RheumNow), Jinoos Yazdany (@JYazdanyMD), Al Kim (@alhkim), Jeff Sparks (@jeffsparks), Jean Liew (@rheum_cat), or Cassie Calabrese (@CCalabreseDO), among many others in our field, I will dive in to investigate.
In the field of basic immunology, when I see a tweet from Drs. Akiko Iwasaki (@VirusesImmunity), E. John Wherry (@EJohnWherry), Jean-Laurent Casanova (@casanova_lab) or Shane Crotty (@profshanecrotty), and others, I know and trust I am all over it.
Meanwhile, for infectious diseases and all matters related to COVID-19, I seek the comments of Drs. Paul Sax (@PaulSaxMD) and Carlos del Rio (@CarlosdelRio7), as well as the ever-present polymath (and cardiologist!) Eric Topol (@EricTopol).
Along the lines of information transfer, I tell our trainees and anyone else who listens that seeing an article highlighted by someone and reading their take is of interest, but it’s no substitute for reading the paper critically yourself. I have been occasionally lambasted across Twitter by people citing things I have written, but what I am being criticized for is not reflected by the content of the article being mentioned!
It reminds me of the instantly iconic scene in Knives Out, when Joni Thrombey, a shallow, duplicitous and thieving character, unashamedly tells Benoit Blanc, “I read a tweet about a New Yorker article about you,” as if reading the tweet, and not the actual article, was enough to tell her all she needed to know about him. Such is the terrain and the good, bad and ugly of Twitter.
Finally, this year I was stuck by another dimension of Twitter, specifically the humanity that can occasionally be experienced there. Phil Robinson was a great rheumatologist and man who recently passed away at the age of 43. I knew of Phil pre-pandemic but never met him. I began to follow him on Twitter starting from the earliest days of the pandemic, and he in turn began to follow me. It was just the usual Twitter interaction — follow, like, comment — until my fateful tweet early in the pandemic when I blindly challenged the profession to develop a system to track our patients with COVID-19.
Within hours, Phil and Jinoos Yazdany sprang to the fore and the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance (@rheum_covid) was born. Soon thereafter an executive committee of the willing joined in, and they created the most powerful and well curated platform among all immune-mediated inflammatory diseases to investigate and report on the results.
As for the humanity, over the ensuing years I got to know Phil in many ways. First, Phil and I exchanged hundreds of tweets, we Zoomed together, and then Phil touched all of us in the rheum-COVID community by cohosting the Community Hub on COVID-19 with Cassie Calabrese virtually at ACR Convergence 2022. It was a family affair.
Then, after all of the indirect, virtual interactions with Phil, he finally became “real” to me when he walked up and greeted me at a pub in Philly and we had a beer together at ACR 2022. There was something surreal about the moment. Did he look the way he projected on Zoom or in his photos? I am sure he thought the same of me (“This guy looks a lot older than I thought!”). It was wonderful and grand, and I am now forever grateful to have shared those moments in person. It was like closing a book in many ways. A moment to reflect.
I now think about the thousands of Twitter followers who I have never, or will never, meet. So, if you follow me and you see me, give me a virtual high five! In closing, Twitter is a gateway to many things — some very good and occasionally very bad. Look for the good. Look for the humanity to augment the data. My closing admonition for using Twitter, and as I have tweeted many times, is a quote from the immortal Kurt Vonnegut: “You’ve got to be kind.” That’s my take. What is yours? Please share your thoughts with me at calabrl@ccf.org or at rheumatology@healio.com.
- For more information:
- Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, is the Chief Medical Editor, Healio Rheumatology, and Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, and RJ Fasenmyer Chair of Clinical Immunology at the Cleveland Clinic.
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