ARTICLE

Leading through tweeting: physicians and Twitter

Leading through tweeting: physicians and Twitter

Pat Rich

 

Although the uptake of social media by the Canadian medical community remains slow, Twitter has recently been used to great effect in physician elections, and social media are becoming pervasive in medical education and at medical conferences. However, discussions have become heated at times and have prompted displays of unprofessional behaviour. In response, the CMA has prepared a charter of shared values for physicians referencing the need for civility and appropriate behaviour when using such tools.

 

KEY WORDS: social media, Twitter, leadership, elections, medical professionalism

 

One need look no further than this year’s election campaign in Ontario for president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) to see an example of how social media and, specifically Twitter, can be used productively as a leadership tool. Top

 

Unfortunately, Ontario is also where one can see the challenges and pitfalls of physician use of Twitter or, to use Twitter parlance, hashtag “physiciansbehavingbadly.”

 

Although Twitter has been a mainstay of the social media communications world for about a decade now, Canadian physicians have generally been slow to develop a presence or acknowledge the value of the platform. Comprehensive surveys show that fewer than 5% of Canadian doctors use Twitter professionally,1 a statistic that has not changed over the years.

 

In contrast, in the United States most physicians seem to be using all social media channels, including Twitter, to support their practices.2 Although some of this difference is a result of overexaggeration of the limited good data on physician use of social media, the gap can also be attributed to the competitive nature of practice in the US and the value of social media as a marketing tool.

 

Although social media and Twitter use has been fairly static in the Canadian medical community, there are indications that Twitter has become more entrenched, at least in academic medicine and as a learning tool.

 

Four years ago, Dr. Ali Jalali (@ARJalali), head of the division of clinical and functional anatomy at the University of Ottawa, was featured in a video3 made for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada dealing with the value of social media for physicians and how to get started. With more than 2700 viewings, it has hardly gone viral, but, in many ways, it set out the rationale and standards for the professional use of social media by Canadian doctors. Top

 

Since making that video, Dr. Jalali has remained a leading Canadian academic physician when it comes to professional use of social media and has published several papers and studies with a special focus on the impact of social media on medical education and its use by medical students and residents. He believes social media have become much better accepted in the profession in Canada since he made the video.

 

“I don’t think the idea was to get more and more doctors on social media,” he said in an interview last summer, “but rather to make them more aware of what social media is.”4 With more patients using social media and posting queries for physicians, he said, it was important to make physicians aware of how to deal with these interactions. “We managed to open the discussion,” he said. As a turning point in Canada, Dr. Jalali points to a 2014 publication by the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) that acknowledged the reality of social media in medical practice. “Whether doctors choose to engage in social media or not, they cannot ignore the implications,” CMPA CEO Dr. Hartley Stern wrote at that time.5

 

According to Dr. Jalali, this was a huge change from the earlier stance of the CMPA as totally opposed to physicians having anything to do with social media. “That gave a huge boost to our work in promoting the use of social media by physicians. It’s not as exclusive as it was.”4

 

Evidence of the continued recognition of Twitter and social media by leading physicians can also be seen in a recent news item in CMAJ, in which two Canadian physicians talk of the obligation for physicians to become engaged in conversations on social media, so that they provide knowledgeable opinions.6

 

Twitter use in physician elections

Five years ago, the two candidates for president-elect of the CMA, Drs. Chris Simpson (@Dr_ChrisSimpson) and Gail Beck (@GailYentaBeck), both embraced social media as election tools, a first for medical elections in Canada. Simpson, especially adopted Twitter and, as a cardiologist and currently acting dean of the faculty of health sciences at the Queen’s University, continues to use it on a daily basis.

 

But this active sponsorship of Twitter by Canadian physician leaders was a bit of a blip on the radar, and it was only this year that the election for CMA president-elect was truly fought on Twitter. In a professional and courteous manner that must surely set the standard for such discussions, president-elect candidates, Drs. Sandy Buchman (@DocSandyB), Mamta Gautam (@PEAKMD), Darren Larsen (@larsen4CMA), and Atul Kapur (@Kapur_AK) took to Twitter to promote their platforms and debate issues.

With the shrinking number of non-peer reviewed printed publications aimed at Canadian physicians, this Twitter activity gave all Canadian physicians, not just the Ontario CMA members eligible to vote, an opportunity not only to hear from the candidates but also to engage with them. And although the Twitter campaign was not perfect — it was a few days before #CMAelection was identified as the hashtag and one of the early election tweetchats occurred without a hashtag — it did confirm that Twitter continues to be a valid leadership platform for physicians in 2018. Top

 

General use of social media in medicine

Internationally, physicians have been talking about the evolution of digital health and social media and the importance of physicians being aware of and involved in this movement. Medical students and residents are entering medicine at a time when the Internet, digital health, social media, and mobile apps are becoming increasingly interconnected.

 

“Today’s medical professionals must be masters of different skills that are related to using digital devices or online solutions” and mastering those skills “is now a crucial skill set that all medical professionals require,” is how leading medical futurist Dr. Bertalan Meskó puts it.7

 

A paper published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education last year spoke to the growing role of social media in general in academic medicine.8 That document noted that social media present a new space for academic medicine that has enormous possibilities for research, education, clinical care, and dissemination of health care science. Institutions are starting to recognize social media scholarship as significant and meritorious and to include it when an academic is being considered for promotion and tenure.

 

Dr. Jalali speaks about how pervasive social media have become in medical education and at medical conferences, with every conference now having a specific hashtag and making conscious efforts to have delegates engage in online discourse. Hashtags are used on Twitter to organize content by topic or theme. Dr. Jalali said an intelligent Twitter presence is now a reality in medical education and this has immensely benefited those unable to attend major conferences in person. “In medical education, it has now become part of the conference.”4

 

The same is true of health policy conferences. The number of participants tweeting about the CMA’s annual general council meeting increased from 1946 in 2015 to 2295 last year, with the number of tweets also rising from 10,748 to 13,861. Top

 

However, the conflicting views that the medical profession continues to have about Twitter use can be seen in the fact that some conferences continue to try to forbid delegates from live tweeting during sessions or, more commonly, to forbid the posting of photographs from presentations. Witness also recent annual meetings of the Canadian Society of Physician Leaders where live tweeting has been encouraged, with the exception of the keynote panel discussion where delegates were asked not to tweet because of potential political sensibilities.

 

Dr. Jalali also points to the incredibly active social media debate and discussion around the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and its interactions with the provincial government as well as its own internal politics in 2016 as another indicator of the growth in influence of social media. “The younger generation is saying, I can use this tool to my advantage.”4

 

But this activity also revealed a dark side of physician Twitter use — one that has shaped discussions about how medical professionalism is being defined in Canada today. Briefly, heated debate about the proposed 2016 OMA fee deal escalated on Facebook and Twitter to the degree that one medical student leader had his career threatened for speaking out on the proposed agreement. While such threats were soundly condemned by other physicians, debate flared into threats once again in the summer of 2017 when proposed changes to incorporation rules for physicians dominated the physician policy agenda.

 

As a result of these situations, an ongoing discussion around a planned CMA charter of shared values for physicians (now published) focused very much on social media, specifically Twitter and the need for appropriate behaviour when using the platform. The section of this charter dealing with civility can be seen as a direct response to the Twitter firefights between doctors that broke out in 2016 and 2017.

 

As a physician, I will strive to be civil; I will respect myself and others, regardless of their role, even those with whom I may not agree; I will enter into communication with my physician colleagues with an attitude of active and open listening, whether it be in person, in writing, or virtually; and I will accept personal accountability.9 Top

 

For some physicians, the circumstances surrounding the use of Twitter in relation to OMA and CMA issues has fundamentally changed their approach to the platform and, in some instances, led them to abandon it completely. It has become abundantly clear that the 140 (now 280) character limit on Twitter is not designed for detailed debate between those holding opposing views. “Twitter has proven tedious and even toxic to what I enjoy most. 140 characters leaves little room for nuance, little room for substance, little room for clarification, and little room for courtesy, regret, or forgiveness,” was how Dr. Frank Warsh (@DrWarsh) put it in a blog posting last year.10

 

Dr. Joshua Tepper (@DrJoshuaTepper), president and CEO of Health Quality Ontario, is similarly cautious. At a panel discussion during last year’s Canadian Conference on Physician Leadership, Tepper described the use of social media, including Twitter, as “fun and educational but not without risks.” He urged physicians and especially students and residents to be “very, very thoughtful” about how they engage on Twitter.

 

“For me, Twitter has emerged as more of an information channel than a true ‘social’ tool – for better or worse,” said Dr. Bryan Vartabedian (@Doctor_V) in a blog post in January discussing the end of #hcsm, one of the original tweetchat groups dedicated to health care topics.11 Dr. Vartabedian, a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine, has been a leading physician commentator on Twitter for several years.

 

But in another blog post, he remarked, “If you think Twitter has devolved into a buttoned-down forum for predictable professional posturing, check out #Ilooklikeasurgeon. This and other communities of female physician voices on Twitter are shaping a new image of the physician.”12 Top

 

In fact, some of the most active Canadian physician voices on Twitter today belong to female physicians, such as CMA president-elect Dr. Gigi Osler (@drgigiosler) and Dr. Susan Shaw (@drsusanshaw), chief medical officer, Saskatchewan Health Authority.

At a practical level, the potential benefits of using Twitter are not new and can be summarized as follows:

  • To stay informed
  • As a learning tool in medical education
  • To communicate (engage) with peers and patients
  • To disseminate information
  • To advocate for/against something
  • To deliver clinical care

 

Although other social media platforms, such as closed Facebook groups, are being explored to deliver clinical care, the open and insecure nature of Twitter means it is ill-suited for delivering direct patient care. However, it is interesting to note that, several years ago, a pair of physicians from the Netherlands did successfully use Twitter to triage patients in primary care, but this was done purely as a pilot project to see if such an approach was possible13; it has not been pursued since.

 

Similarly, guidance on the professional use of Twitter for physicians has been constant for many years and revolves around maintaining patient confidentiality and using the same standards for professionalism as those applied to any other means of communication. Provincial medical colleges and numerous medical associations all have guidelines for their members on social media use, including Twitter. Top

 

Despite the ongoing dedicated use of Twitter by some physicians, Dr. Jalali said it remains uncertain whether social media have actually done anything to improve health outcomes or the health status of the public as a whole. And, like other physicians who have been leaders on Twitter in recent years, he has been rethinking his approach and took a conscious break from social media last year when he took paternity leave.

 

He said this was a very positive move that made him realize how important it is to wellness and personal relationships to maintain a balanced approach to social media use. “It definitely was a good thing to do,” he says.

 

Dr. Jalali has now returned to Twitter and other social media but acknowledged that he is not as active as he once was.  He says that when discussing the professional use of Twitter and social media with students and residents now, he also talks about wellness and how to manage time properly.4

 

Between those who suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) and neglect other duties to spend inordinate amounts of time on Twitter and those who have avoided Twitter completely lies the path of the physician leader who can recognize both the benefits and drawbacks of the platform. Top

 

For those who use it appropriately, Twitter can serve as an unprecedented information source and a way to network, not only with peers but also with all stakeholders in the health care system including patients and members of the public. But, as with all modern communications channels, Twitter continues to evolve both in form and in function, and most productive use is best served by being aware of this.

 

References

1.National physician survey, 2014, national results by FP/GP or other specialist, sex, age and all physicians. Mississauga, Ont.: National Physician Survey; 2014. Available:

https://tinyurl.com/ycbjzdk6

2.HIMMS16 and the healthcare’s profession’s changing view of social media. Oxfordshire, UK: Medelinked; 2016. Available: https://tinyurl.com/y8vjlleh

3.Social media for physicians: what’s the value and how to get started. Ottawa: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada; 2013. Available: http://bit.ly/2olFlsu

4.Rich P. Optimistic outlook and a lesson on wellness: an interview with Dr. Ali Jalali. Ottawa: Days of Past Futures; july 21, 2017. Available: https://tinyurl.com/yb32vdv8

5.Social media : the opportunities, the realities. Ottawa: Canadian Medical Protective Association; 2014. Available: https://tinyurl.com/yasmu84t

6.Motlul A. Do physicians have a duty to share their views on social media? CMAJnews, Feb 2018. Available: https://tinyurl.com/y9l7bkbk

7.Tepper J. I, doctor. Toronto: Health Quality Ontario; 2017. Available: https://tinyurl.com/yaob7q6f

8.Cabrera D, Vartabedian BS, Spinner RJ, Jordan BL, Aase LA, Timimi FK. More than likes and tweets: creating social media portfolios for academic promotion and tenure. J Grad Med Educ 2017;9(4):421-5. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-17-00171.1

9.Charter of shared values: a vision for intra-professionalism for physicians. Ottawa: Canadian Medical Association; n.d. Available: http://bit.ly/2GsNT8s

10.Warsh F. Arevederci Twitter. London, Ont.: Flamed Broiled Doctor; 2017. http://drwarsh.blogspot.ca/2017/07/arrivederci-twitter.html

11.Vartabedian B. 3 reasons the sun went down on #HCSM. Woodlands, Tex.: 33 charts; 2018. Available: https://33charts.com/hcsm/

12.Vartabedian B. Twitter’s continuum of female physician voices: ILookLikeaSurgeon, GirlMedTwitter, and MotherCutter. Woodlands, Tx.: 33 Charts; 2018. Available:

https://33charts.com/ilooklikeasurgeon/

13.Graetzel P. Dr. med. Twitter: Niederlande sind weiter. Cologne, Germany: DocCheck News; 2012. Available: https://tinyurl.com/y8cs2tf5

 

Author

Pat Rich (@pat_health) is a medical writer and editor who spends far too much time on Twitter. Top

 

Correspondence to:

prich5757@gmail.com

 

This article has been peer reviewed.

 

 

One need look no further than this year’s election campaign in Ontario for president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) to see an example of how social media and, specifically Twitter, can be used productively as a leadership tool. Top

Leading through tweeting: physicians and Twitter

Pat Rich

 

Although the uptake of social media by the Canadian medical community remains slow, Twitter has recently been used to great effect in physician elections, and social media are becoming pervasive in medical education and at medical conferences. However, discussions have become heated at times and have prompted displays of unprofessional behaviour. In response, the CMA has prepared a charter of shared values for physicians referencing the need for civility and appropriate behaviour when using such tools.

 

KEY WORDS: social media, Twitter, leadership, elections, medical professionalism

 

One need look no further than this year’s election campaign in Ontario for president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) to see an example of how social media and, specifically Twitter, can be used productively as a leadership tool. Top

 

Unfortunately, Ontario is also where one can see the challenges and pitfalls of physician use of Twitter or, to use Twitter parlance, hashtag “physiciansbehavingbadly.”

 

Although Twitter has been a mainstay of the social media communications world for about a decade now, Canadian physicians have generally been slow to develop a presence or acknowledge the value of the platform. Comprehensive surveys show that fewer than 5% of Canadian doctors use Twitter professionally,1 a statistic that has not changed over the years.

 

In contrast, in the United States most physicians seem to be using all social media channels, including Twitter, to support their practices.2 Although some of this difference is a result of overexaggeration of the limited good data on physician use of social media, the gap can also be attributed to the competitive nature of practice in the US and the value of social media as a marketing tool.

 

Although social media and Twitter use has been fairly static in the Canadian medical community, there are indications that Twitter has become more entrenched, at least in academic medicine and as a learning tool.

 

Four years ago, Dr. Ali Jalali (@ARJalali), head of the division of clinical and functional anatomy at the University of Ottawa, was featured in a video3 made for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada dealing with the value of social media for physicians and how to get started. With more than 2700 viewings, it has hardly gone viral, but, in many ways, it set out the rationale and standards for the professional use of social media by Canadian doctors. Top

 

Since making that video, Dr. Jalali has remained a leading Canadian academic physician when it comes to professional use of social media and has published several papers and studies with a special focus on the impact of social media on medical education and its use by medical students and residents. He believes social media have become much better accepted in the profession in Canada since he made the video.

 

“I don’t think the idea was to get more and more doctors on social media,” he said in an interview last summer, “but rather to make them more aware of what social media is.”4 With more patients using social media and posting queries for physicians, he said, it was important to make physicians aware of how to deal with these interactions. “We managed to open the discussion,” he said. As a turning point in Canada, Dr. Jalali points to a 2014 publication by the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) that acknowledged the reality of social media in medical practice. “Whether doctors choose to engage in social media or not, they cannot ignore the implications,” CMPA CEO Dr. Hartley Stern wrote at that time.5

 

According to Dr. Jalali, this was a huge change from the earlier stance of the CMPA as totally opposed to physicians having anything to do with social media. “That gave a huge boost to our work in promoting the use of social media by physicians. It’s not as exclusive as it was.”4

 

Evidence of the continued recognition of Twitter and social media by leading physicians can also be seen in a recent news item in CMAJ, in which two Canadian physicians talk of the obligation for physicians to become engaged in conversations on social media, so that they provide knowledgeable opinions.6

 

Twitter use in physician elections

Five years ago, the two candidates for president-elect of the CMA, Drs. Chris Simpson (@Dr_ChrisSimpson) and Gail Beck (@GailYentaBeck), both embraced social media as election tools, a first for medical elections in Canada. Simpson, especially adopted Twitter and, as a cardiologist and currently acting dean of the faculty of health sciences at the Queen’s University, continues to use it on a daily basis.

 

But this active sponsorship of Twitter by Canadian physician leaders was a bit of a blip on the radar, and it was only this year that the election for CMA president-elect was truly fought on Twitter. In a professional and courteous manner that must surely set the standard for such discussions, president-elect candidates, Drs. Sandy Buchman (@DocSandyB), Mamta Gautam (@PEAKMD), Darren Larsen (@larsen4CMA), and Atul Kapur (@Kapur_AK) took to Twitter to promote their platforms and debate issues.

With the shrinking number of non-peer reviewed printed publications aimed at Canadian physicians, this Twitter activity gave all Canadian physicians, not just the Ontario CMA members eligible to vote, an opportunity not only to hear from the candidates but also to engage with them. And although the Twitter campaign was not perfect — it was a few days before #CMAelection was identified as the hashtag and one of the early election tweetchats occurred without a hashtag — it did confirm that Twitter continues to be a valid leadership platform for physicians in 2018. Top

 

General use of social media in medicine

Internationally, physicians have been talking about the evolution of digital health and social media and the importance of physicians being aware of and involved in this movement. Medical students and residents are entering medicine at a time when the Internet, digital health, social media, and mobile apps are becoming increasingly interconnected.

 

“Today’s medical professionals must be masters of different skills that are related to using digital devices or online solutions” and mastering those skills “is now a crucial skill set that all medical professionals require,” is how leading medical futurist Dr. Bertalan Meskó puts it.7

 

A paper published in the Journal of Graduate Medical Education last year spoke to the growing role of social media in general in academic medicine.8 That document noted that social media present a new space for academic medicine that has enormous possibilities for research, education, clinical care, and dissemination of health care science. Institutions are starting to recognize social media scholarship as significant and meritorious and to include it when an academic is being considered for promotion and tenure.

 

Dr. Jalali speaks about how pervasive social media have become in medical education and at medical conferences, with every conference now having a specific hashtag and making conscious efforts to have delegates engage in online discourse. Hashtags are used on Twitter to organize content by topic or theme. Dr. Jalali said an intelligent Twitter presence is now a reality in medical education and this has immensely benefited those unable to attend major conferences in person. “In medical education, it has now become part of the conference.”4

 

The same is true of health policy conferences. The number of participants tweeting about the CMA’s annual general council meeting increased from 1946 in 2015 to 2295 last year, with the number of tweets also rising from 10,748 to 13,861. Top

 

However, the conflicting views that the medical profession continues to have about Twitter use can be seen in the fact that some conferences continue to try to forbid delegates from live tweeting during sessions or, more commonly, to forbid the posting of photographs from presentations. Witness also recent annual meetings of the Canadian Society of Physician Leaders where live tweeting has been encouraged, with the exception of the keynote panel discussion where delegates were asked not to tweet because of potential political sensibilities.

 

Dr. Jalali also points to the incredibly active social media debate and discussion around the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and its interactions with the provincial government as well as its own internal politics in 2016 as another indicator of the growth in influence of social media. “The younger generation is saying, I can use this tool to my advantage.”4

 

But this activity also revealed a dark side of physician Twitter use — one that has shaped discussions about how medical professionalism is being defined in Canada today. Briefly, heated debate about the proposed 2016 OMA fee deal escalated on Facebook and Twitter to the degree that one medical student leader had his career threatened for speaking out on the proposed agreement. While such threats were soundly condemned by other physicians, debate flared into threats once again in the summer of 2017 when proposed changes to incorporation rules for physicians dominated the physician policy agenda.

 

As a result of these situations, an ongoing discussion around a planned CMA charter of shared values for physicians (now published) focused very much on social media, specifically Twitter and the need for appropriate behaviour when using the platform. The section of this charter dealing with civility can be seen as a direct response to the Twitter firefights between doctors that broke out in 2016 and 2017.

 

As a physician, I will strive to be civil; I will respect myself and others, regardless of their role, even those with whom I may not agree; I will enter into communication with my physician colleagues with an attitude of active and open listening, whether it be in person, in writing, or virtually; and I will accept personal accountability.9 Top

 

For some physicians, the circumstances surrounding the use of Twitter in relation to OMA and CMA issues has fundamentally changed their approach to the platform and, in some instances, led them to abandon it completely. It has become abundantly clear that the 140 (now 280) character limit on Twitter is not designed for detailed debate between those holding opposing views. “Twitter has proven tedious and even toxic to what I enjoy most. 140 characters leaves little room for nuance, little room for substance, little room for clarification, and little room for courtesy, regret, or forgiveness,” was how Dr. Frank Warsh (@DrWarsh) put it in a blog posting last year.10

 

Dr. Joshua Tepper (@DrJoshuaTepper), president and CEO of Health Quality Ontario, is similarly cautious. At a panel discussion during last year’s Canadian Conference on Physician Leadership, Tepper described the use of social media, including Twitter, as “fun and educational but not without risks.” He urged physicians and especially students and residents to be “very, very thoughtful” about how they engage on Twitter.

 

“For me, Twitter has emerged as more of an information channel than a true ‘social’ tool – for better or worse,” said Dr. Bryan Vartabedian (@Doctor_V) in a blog post in January discussing the end of #hcsm, one of the original tweetchat groups dedicated to health care topics.11 Dr. Vartabedian, a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine, has been a leading physician commentator on Twitter for several years.

 

But in another blog post, he remarked, “If you think Twitter has devolved into a buttoned-down forum for predictable professional posturing, check out #Ilooklikeasurgeon. This and other communities of female physician voices on Twitter are shaping a new image of the physician.”12 Top

 

In fact, some of the most active Canadian physician voices on Twitter today belong to female physicians, such as CMA president-elect Dr. Gigi Osler (@drgigiosler) and Dr. Susan Shaw (@drsusanshaw), chief medical officer, Saskatchewan Health Authority.

At a practical level, the potential benefits of using Twitter are not new and can be summarized as follows:

  • To stay informed
  • As a learning tool in medical education
  • To communicate (engage) with peers and patients
  • To disseminate information
  • To advocate for/against something
  • To deliver clinical care

 

Although other social media platforms, such as closed Facebook groups, are being explored to deliver clinical care, the open and insecure nature of Twitter means it is ill-suited for delivering direct patient care. However, it is interesting to note that, several years ago, a pair of physicians from the Netherlands did successfully use Twitter to triage patients in primary care, but this was done purely as a pilot project to see if such an approach was possible13; it has not been pursued since.

 

Similarly, guidance on the professional use of Twitter for physicians has been constant for many years and revolves around maintaining patient confidentiality and using the same standards for professionalism as those applied to any other means of communication. Provincial medical colleges and numerous medical associations all have guidelines for their members on social media use, including Twitter. Top

 

Despite the ongoing dedicated use of Twitter by some physicians, Dr. Jalali said it remains uncertain whether social media have actually done anything to improve health outcomes or the health status of the public as a whole. And, like other physicians who have been leaders on Twitter in recent years, he has been rethinking his approach and took a conscious break from social media last year when he took paternity leave.

 

He said this was a very positive move that made him realize how important it is to wellness and personal relationships to maintain a balanced approach to social media use. “It definitely was a good thing to do,” he says.

 

Dr. Jalali has now returned to Twitter and other social media but acknowledged that he is not as active as he once was.  He says that when discussing the professional use of Twitter and social media with students and residents now, he also talks about wellness and how to manage time properly.4

 

Between those who suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) and neglect other duties to spend inordinate amounts of time on Twitter and those who have avoided Twitter completely lies the path of the physician leader who can recognize both the benefits and drawbacks of the platform. Top

 

For those who use it appropriately, Twitter can serve as an unprecedented information source and a way to network, not only with peers but also with all stakeholders in the health care system including patients and members of the public. But, as with all modern communications channels, Twitter continues to evolve both in form and in function, and most productive use is best served by being aware of this.

 

References

1.National physician survey, 2014, national results by FP/GP or other specialist, sex, age and all physicians. Mississauga, Ont.: National Physician Survey; 2014. Available:

https://tinyurl.com/ycbjzdk6

2.HIMMS16 and the healthcare’s profession’s changing view of social media. Oxfordshire, UK: Medelinked; 2016. Available: https://tinyurl.com/y8vjlleh

3.Social media for physicians: what’s the value and how to get started. Ottawa: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada; 2013. Available: http://bit.ly/2olFlsu

4.Rich P. Optimistic outlook and a lesson on wellness: an interview with Dr. Ali Jalali. Ottawa: Days of Past Futures; july 21, 2017. Available: https://tinyurl.com/yb32vdv8

5.Social media : the opportunities, the realities. Ottawa: Canadian Medical Protective Association; 2014. Available: https://tinyurl.com/yasmu84t

6.Motlul A. Do physicians have a duty to share their views on social media? CMAJnews, Feb 2018. Available: https://tinyurl.com/y9l7bkbk

7.Tepper J. I, doctor. Toronto: Health Quality Ontario; 2017. Available: https://tinyurl.com/yaob7q6f

8.Cabrera D, Vartabedian BS, Spinner RJ, Jordan BL, Aase LA, Timimi FK. More than likes and tweets: creating social media portfolios for academic promotion and tenure. J Grad Med Educ 2017;9(4):421-5. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-17-00171.1

9.Charter of shared values: a vision for intra-professionalism for physicians. Ottawa: Canadian Medical Association; n.d. Available: http://bit.ly/2GsNT8s

10.Warsh F. Arevederci Twitter. London, Ont.: Flamed Broiled Doctor; 2017. http://drwarsh.blogspot.ca/2017/07/arrivederci-twitter.html

11.Vartabedian B. 3 reasons the sun went down on #HCSM. Woodlands, Tex.: 33 charts; 2018. Available: https://33charts.com/hcsm/

12.Vartabedian B. Twitter’s continuum of female physician voices: ILookLikeaSurgeon, GirlMedTwitter, and MotherCutter. Woodlands, Tx.: 33 Charts; 2018. Available:

https://33charts.com/ilooklikeasurgeon/

13.Graetzel P. Dr. med. Twitter: Niederlande sind weiter. Cologne, Germany: DocCheck News; 2012. Available: https://tinyurl.com/y8cs2tf5

 

Author

Pat Rich (@pat_health) is a medical writer and editor who spends far too much time on Twitter. Top

 

Correspondence to:

prich5757@gmail.com

 

This article has been peer reviewed.