I am a Luddite when it comes to social media, the web-based
interactive media such as Facebook and other more professionally oriented ones
like Linkedin. I do have a Facebook page but I rarely use it. I have a blog where I
post my poetry http://stephenleeder.blogspot.com.au/
but no one ever visits and another blog where I post extended versions of
articles like this
http://steve-leeder-better-health.blogspot.com/. And yes, I have Tweeted 30 times! Basically, I stick to email.
http://steve-leeder-better-health.blogspot.com/. And yes, I have Tweeted 30 times! Basically, I stick to email.
But my youngest son (19) belongs to a generation for whom
social media are a principal social communication channel. Recent medical
graduates know all about it and how to use it wisely and well. It serves to
link doctor to doctor and to some extent patient to doctor.
Social media according toWikipedia includes “web- and
mobile-based technologies that are used to turn communication into interactive
dialogue among organisations, communities and individuals”.
Today, news travels like lightning via Twitter and Facebook. "A common thread," says Wikipedia,
"running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology
and social interaction for the [rapid] co-creation of value."
Social media are cheap to use. Anyone can publish on them unlike on the
commercial media. And they are
immediate: whereas it may take weeks to get an idea into print, with social
media communication is now. You can edit an article easily on social media
whereas reprinting to correct an error is a nightmare.
Are the social media likely to be professionally
useful? My guess is that they will prove
to be so. A group of general practitioners
could use social media to discuss how best to manage a group of patients in a
local nursing home. But they might get their fingers burnt unless the social
medium they were using was fenced off, like a gated village, for their use
alone.
Australian Doctor
has established docs4docs for that purpose.
Take a look at http://just4docs.com.au/index.php/forums/topic/26/medicare-locals
and see as an example a series of depressing conversational comments on
Medicare Locals
If
you are going to use social media for professional purposes please be
careful. A list of questions to ask
yourself before you get too deeply into social media were provided in a paper
published in the Medical Journal of
Australia last year by a working group drawn from the AMA
Council of Doctors in Training, NZMA Doctors-in-Training Council, AMSA, and the
New Zealand Medical Students’ Association (NZMSA).
A guide from which the MJA paper was drawn can be found at http://ama.com.au/socialmedia. Here are the questions.
Have you ever Googled yourself? Do you feel comfortable with
the results that are shown?
Have you ever:
• Posted information about a patient or person from your workplace on Facebook?
• Added patients as friends on Facebook or MySpace?
• Added people from your workplace as friends?
• Made a public comment online that could be considered offensive?
• Become a member or fan of any group that might be considered racist, sexist, or otherwise derogatory?
• Put up photos or videos of yourself online that you
wouldn’t want your patients, employers or people from your workplace
to see?
• Felt that friends have posted information online that may result in negative consequences for them? Did you let them know?
• Checked your privacy settings?
So there you have it!
Good luck but take care!
