Should physicians tweet about politics?
Usually, my answer is no. If you’re ikigai – your mission – is to help out individual patients, then it can only hurt you.
For example, if you are a cardiovascular surgeon, whose principal mission is to care so your specific patients, I can see no benefits in tweeting about the upcoming election to help fulfill your mission.
Heck, mostly what I see is potential for cognitive distraction and an argumentative, emotional mindset, something which is very unlikely to help any patient under the knife!
However, I do feel there’s an exception to the “Physicians Shouldn’t Tweet Politics” rule.
If your mission isn’t direct patient care and is instead group patient advocacy or citizen advocacy, then by all enter the political arena.
But let’s be very clear on the word “arena”.
This arena isn’t a space to share and debate political and policy ideas with the intent of achieving the best course of action.
No. This political arena, especially the digital political arena, is a field of conflict, a place of significant anger, animosity, ignorance, and hate.
It’s not only your ideas that will be attacked but you yourself who is going to be attacked.
And these attacks can affect your reputation, your livelihood, and even your ability to practice medicine in the future.
Therefore, if you are a physician who does choose to enter the political arena, do it as a conscious choice, and prepare yourself for a winner-take-all battle.
Because guess what? That’s what’s going to happen.