Medicine on Russian-Language Social Media

Ch. 30. P. 350–360.

Karpova Y., Vasilyev P.

This article focuses on the Russian case as leading in global blogging about evidence-based medicine (EBM). We suggest that before February 2022 Russophone bloggers represented the growing trend in medical communication. Since the mid-2010s, Russian-speaking physicians from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia started launching educational pages with the twin aim of educating the public and discussing new research and clinical guidelines with their colleagues. These pioneers were the employees of private clinics that promoted EBM (translated into Russian as dokazatel’naia meditsina, literally ‘proof-based medicine’) as opposed to clinical practice based on the authority of Head Physicians. In addition, dokazatel’naia meditsina emerged as an antidote to a range of alternative medical practices – from ‘folk’ treatments going back to the preindustrial past or invented in the twentieth century, to cleansing marathons and fad diets promoted by fitness guru. Medical bloggers often unite these diverse practices in the Russian term mrakobesiie (‘obscurantism’). The characteristics ‘klinika dokazatel’noi meditsiny’ (‘evidence-based medicine clinic’) and ‘dokazatel’nyi vrach’ (‘evidence-based physician’) became central in medical social media. ‘Evidence-based’ private clinics chose socia media platforms to present their progressive approach to healthcare, and the administration encouraged the employees to launch personal pages in addition to the clinics’ corporate pages. Doctors' individual pages appeared as advancing the public image of their employers. Then some doctors from public healthcare sector followed suit.

Keywords: доказательная медицина, Runet, русскоязычный интернет, evidence-based medicine, medical blogging, медицинские блоги

In book

The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Bioethics

Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2022.