Review of Doctor's Channel

As a site made by physicians for physicians, The Doctor’s Channel understands just how busy life in medicine can be. When company president David Best, MD, MBA, and Michael Banks, MD, launched the site in beta form in August 2007, they wanted to provide a one-stop, time-saving resource that would allow doctors to exchange ideas, information, and news with each other using the latest Internet TV technology.

Says Best, who has worked in healthcare advertising, marketing and education for 25 years, “We started the Doctor’s Channel because it’s apparent that the traditional system of medical education isn’t working as well as it could. The physician, who really does have precious few minutes a day, is the perfect audience for short, succinct educational streaming videos. Our goal is to provide an engaging, interesting way for doctors to learn that quickly gets to the point.”

The Doctor’s Channel is broken up into several sections, each offering different perspectives into medical issues but all sharing one thing in common: videos that can fit into an MD’s hectic workday in less than two minutes. A great deal of the site is devoted to 35 therapeutic specialties, ranging from allergy and clinical immunology to women’s health, that will each feature videos in which doctors impart advice for dealing with various aspects of patient care or discuss research involving particular medical conditions.

In I Could Care Les, surgeon Dr. Les Edrich sounds off on medical controversies, ethics, and other sensitive topics, such as how to talk to women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer. In Wireless Mike, Dr. Banks provides two-minute roundups from the world of medical news and research. One sample paper discussed: A study of sexuality and health of older adults. The most light-hearted section is MD Tips, in which both founders Best and Banks introduce fellow doctors to charming eateries, shops, hotels, and other recreational points of interest “because being a doctor isn’t all work and no fun.” This section is noteworthy for being easily accessible to even those not in the medical community.

For further interactivity, doctors are also invited to submit their own videos, participate in a Dueling Doctors video forum, and get their clinical questions answered by an expert in Curbside Consult.

You may not agree with his advocacy, but you gotta give Dr. Les Edrich credit for helping us understand the controversial two-tiered medical system with this airline analogy.