SPOTLIGHT

Q&A with Megan Ranney, MD

66 Emergency medicine physician MEGAN yes-or-no answers. It’s tougher to com- RANNEY, MD, MPH, has been busy not municate the unknowns. 67 only on the frontlines at Rhode Island At the end of the day, it doesn’t feel EN Hospital, but on primetime as a medi- all that different from trying to explain cal analyst, both before and during the to a patient why they really don’t need pandemic. an MRI, or why they really do need The spotlight has been on her as she blood pressure medications. It requires Mary Korr voices her expertise across a spectrum of patience, listening, and a willingness to RIMJ Managing Editor topics and issues: PPE, vaccine hesitancy, reach people where they are. gun violence and digital health, to name a few. In this month’s Spotlight feature, RIMJ: As founding director of The RIMJ asked her to share her journey from Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, volunteer to the present, and how did you first get involved in digital Brief bio to offer some pearls of wisdom to and what do you envision as its health and medical students today. next frontier, as well as its coalescence Education with the School of Public Health under Harvard, BA, 1997 your new appointment? College of RIMJ: What led to your role as a DR. RANNEY: I first got involved with Physicians and Surgeons, MD, 2004 medical analyst on CNN and other digital health as a resident working in Program major news outlets? Kenya as part of the AMPATH program in Public Health, MPH, 2010 DR. RANNEY: It was honestly a lot of (a collaboration between Moi University, luck! I got asked by our Lifespan public Indiana University, and Brown Univer- Current relations officer to take an invitation for sity). Although I was already focused Warren Alpert Endowed Associate a CNN segment on John King in mid- largely on violence prevention, I was in- Professor in the Department of March. I guess I must have done a good trigued by an ongoing study using text Emergency Medicine job, as I kept getting asked back. It’s been messaging to improve adherence to anti- a huge learning curve but also a lot of fun retrovirals among villagers with HIV. It Assistant Dean for Digital Health Innovation, Director of the Brown- – and a chance to do good, in a very dif- was the first place that I’d seen people use Lifespan Center for Digital Health ferent way than my day-to-day practice or text messaging to improve health out- my research. comes. At this point, no one was using Associate Professor of Health Services, texting in the U.S. for health promotion Policy and Practice RIMJ: What do you see as the biggest or behavioral health. I returned to the U.S. Associate Dean of Strategy and challenge in getting out scientific with this idea in mind – it was possible Innovation for the School of Public Health information to the general public, and to use technology to identify and deliver Chief Research Officer, addressing vaccine hesitancy? automated public health interventions American Foundation for Firearm DR. RANNEY: The biggest challenges are – and spent the next few years develop- Injury Reduction in Medicine twofold. ing my first application of text messag- First, it’s tough to get folks to really lis- ing to violence prevention (a grant that Founding partner, GetUsPPE.org. ten. Even with my occasional TV appear- was funded by the Society for Academic ances and Twitter presence, I often feel Emergency Medicine). like I (and my colleagues) are shouting Over the last 15 years, of course, the into the void. It’s why it matters to have concept of “digital health” has become a lot of us out there: our voices are more commonplace. It’s rare to find someone likely to be heard when we raise them who does not use text messaging, apps, together! wearables, social media, or some other Second, the nuances involved in public form of technology to manage their health. health messaging isn’t always seen as But we still have far to go. Many digital newsworthy. People want sound bites and health programs are created by private

RIMJ ARCHIVES | MAY ISSUE WEBPAGE | RIMS MAY 2021 RHODE ISLAND MEDICAL JOURNAL 66 SPOTLIGHT

companies without an obligation to basic healthcare back in 2012; wrote 2 papers RIMJ: Do you have some words of concepts of equity and privacy. The ma- using only Twitter in 2015 and 2017; and wisdom (or practical advice) you impart jority of digital health programs lack rig- had been the creator or participant in (or Tweet!) to students today in medicine orous proof of efficacy. And we continue multiple viral social media movements or public health that you did not know to lack programs developed specifically (including short videos to save the ACA, when you were a medical student? for the patient populations that I, as an a series of tweets about the health effects DR. RANNEY: Don’t hesitate to ask for emergency physician, care about most: of gun violence using #docs4gunsense af- opportunities. (Of course, when you get the people with multiple chronic condi- ter Parkland, and more). those opportunities, show up 110%. But tions, the people facing structural barri- I don’t think that #ThisIsOurLane we all know that, already.) ers to health, the people with behavioral would have happened had we not done But at the same time, know that who- health conditions that impair their abili- the hard work over the years prior to, ever you are, and whatever you are doing ty to effectively manage their own care. first, create a welcoming medical Twitter right now, is exactly what you are meant It is this deficit that spurred our cre- (“#medtwitter”) community; and, sec- to be. There’s no way to predict today ation of the Brown-Lifespan Center for ond, to start to talk about firearm inju- where your life will take you 5 or 10 years Digital Health. Through this collabora- ry as a public health problem. Once the from now. As long as you try to do your tion between the university and the hos- hashtag was coined, the rest happened best, that’s enough. pital system, we hope to serve as a hub organically. where creative minds from Brown and Today, we’re seeing medical profes- RIMJ: What is your favorite escape Lifespan can collaboratively design, test, sionals branch out into different forms of from work? and deploy digital health solutions to so- social media, ranging from TikTok to Dis- DR. RANNEY: In non-COVID times, I ciety’s most pressing health challenges. cord servers. I’m excited to see the com- would say travel!! But now it’s going for munities and change that occur as a result. walks outside – nature forces me to put RIMJ: A social media presence is de facto my phone (email, social media, and to-do today. When the NRA tweeted in 2018 RIMJ: A few retrospective questions: lists) away and reconnect with the real that: “Someone should tell self-important Can you share some lessons learned world. v anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane,” as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cote what was your response to that – was D’Ivoire, Africa? it a clarion call to action on your part? DR. RANNEY: The adage is that the DR. RANNEY: By the time that we cre- Peace Corps is “the toughest job you’ll ated the #ThisIsOurLane hashtag, I’d ever love.” This is so very true. I learned already been active on social media for so much about community, humility, and almost a decade. I first started to talk and mental and emotional toughness. I also write about the power of social media in learned to not take good health for granted.

RIMJ ARCHIVES | MAY ISSUE WEBPAGE | RIMS MAY 2021 RHODE ISLAND MEDICAL JOURNAL 67