Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Pracha Eamranond, Chief Medical Officer at Doctorpedia.
And today we have Dr. Inna Lazar,
Doctor of Optometry at Greenwich Eyecare in Connecticut. Welcome,
Inna.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
So, as we've been talking about,
one of the things that we've been encountering with Doctorpedia and with digital
health in general,
over the last several months to years that's
been accelerated by the pandemic is the importance of social media
in terms of healthcare. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself briefly
and how you got into the social media world?
So I graduated in 2015.
I started practicing in Greenwich right there and then,
and I really wasn't active on social media until the
pandemic.
And then I felt like it was the outlet for people to get out and socialize,
even though you were home, stranded. And so
that's when I started using my Instagram as my platform to talk to my patients,
to educate them. Those are the things you should do,
those are the things you shouldn't do, especially when it comes to eye care.
And since then, my account really grew.
And it became a place where patients -- I would get messages,
"Thank you so much for letting me know.
I asked my eye doctor and now I'm being treated.".
Well, that's fabulous. I mean, it's amazing really,
and we hear this from providers all across the world, really,
and using Instagram and other social platforms to really connect.
So can you just give us an example of a patient that you've connected
with?
Yeah, absolutely. It's actually very recent.
I made the video about patients not getting dilated. Patients,
they go in for their eye exam,
they get their glasses and they refuse to get dilated because no one wants to
ruin their day. And I cannot stress enough the importance of dilation,
because during dilation, we're able to diagnose retinal tears,
sometimes cancers,
things that can happen within the eye that you won't know unless you get
dilated. And I made this video, it was quite popular.
And I got a message yesterday from a patient that he went for an eye exam,
he did get dilated and a retinal tear was found and treated right there and
then. And he was grateful. And he was like,
"Thank you so much." And that's why I'm doing it. If I can help one patient,
that's all I want.
Yeah. That's an amazing example. As a primary care doctor and as a teacher,
one of the things,
probably the single most important thing that we struggle with,
with my medical students as we're doing the eye exam,
we're not dilating the eyes. We're seeing patients,
we're teaching medical students, for example, how to examine the eye,
but it's so difficult unless you dilate the eye,
dilate the pupils to be able to look in and do a proper fundus exam.
So that is a great way to diffuse information and knowledge and
educate our late public and really engage
providers, doctors, to do a proper eye exam. So thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
Thank you.
And so right now, given your role with Doctorpedia,
it's an amazing journey to learn from your expertise in eye care and see
how do we translate that into something that would be applicable for our
viewership.
So how do you look at Doctorpedia and its potential to really
help you and your patients and your practice?
Yeah. Great question because I already make my own videos,
but the videos I make, they're fun. They're no more than 15 seconds.
And what I like about Doctorpedia is I'm able to create a professional
video, which I can use for my website,
for my other online sources where I post my videos. So I really like that.
I like that I'll have a real video. [Both laugh].
Yeah, well, we appreciate it. And yeah,
definitely I think one of the things that Doctorpedia has done with our team is
really democratized health information and utilized digital tools to really
promote health. And so, just last question,
what do you think is an important lesson for our viewership, for your patients,
before we adjourn?
It is so important to understand where patients get their
information from.
There are still parts in the United States where you're not able to see a doctor
right away.
And what I like with Doctorpedia specifically that the information
is correct.
It is evidence-based medicine that doctors communicate directly to the patient
and patients are able to gather that information and make their informed
decisions.
Right. And so what we've been seeing and what patients,
what other doctors have been telling us is that we know that there's
misinformation out there. So just given our work together,
we've been able to curate information about iHealth and create these
videos and other types of content so that we can really leverage your expertise
and disseminate it to the broader public. So thank you, Dr. Inna Lazar.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.