How you can harness the facility of social media to learn affected person care

Throughout ASN Kidney Week 2015, I stood in entrance of my poster on an training analysis venture I developed within the fellowship program at Vanderbilt College Faculty of Drugs.

I needed a simpler method to get the data to a bigger viewers.

Twitter beckoned.

Tweets for nephrologists

I used to be already utilizing social media for its “social” facets, sharing photos and life updates with household and buddies. I made a decision to make the leap and begin utilizing Twitter professionally. If it was a very good software to speak with my household, why not with my colleagues?

I went to Twitter.com and signed up with the inventive username – @Anna_Burgner. I did a seek for #KidneyWk and my Twitter feed was stuffed with attention-grabbing academic posts from different nephrologists. I instantly began “following” them to realize entry to their tweets.

That first dive into the land of Twitter shortly spiraled into turning into concerned with the twitter journal membership NephJC, then with the web studying initiative of NephMadness, now in its tenth 12 months (see the Backside Line column within the February situation of Nephrology Information & Points).

It led to new collaborators, new colleagues and new concepts. It has been nice for my profession as a nephrologist; nevertheless, a number of the most shocking advantages I’ve seen are within the space of affected person care.

Schooling initiatives

There are numerous social media-based nephrology training initiatives from which one can study (see field). These embody journal golf equipment to gamification initiatives to dwell protection of conferences to user-generated content material, like weblog posts and “tweetorials.” With all of the instruments out there, it isn’t shocking {that a} poster offered at ASN Kidney Week 2021 from Sozio and colleagues¹ demonstrated a big improve in using social media-based on-line training sources previously 5 years.

The good thing about various kinds of social media-based nephrology training initiatives is there’s something for everybody. I’ve sturdy preferences for each auditory and visible studying. I discover that listening to podcasts, studying weblog posts, trying out photos from NephroPocus, taking part in NephJC journal membership discussions and enjoying NephMadness all work properly for me.

Data and observe

In fact, buying medical information is simply a part of the method. We should additionally make our personal interpretations of the information and determine how greatest to implement these in our practices. That is the place the discussions that occur on social media could be useful, whether or not the discussions happen as a part of a Twitter journal membership, like NephJC, or as a standalone dialog.

These conversations usually embody distinctive views from various contributors that may assist us higher learn to critically interpret knowledge. This is only one of many advantages of Twitter vs. conventional journal golf equipment that Stoneman and colleagues notice of their article.

Lastly, within the continually shifting world we dwell in, our sufferers don’t at all times keep in the identical place. They might transfer to different areas of the US or midway world wide. With social media, I can simply get suggestions from different nephrologists for putting my sufferers.

I hope I’ve piqued the curiosity of Nephrology Information & Points readers to make the most of social media professionally. Begin by trying out this 12 months’s NephMadness at www.AJKDblog.

See you on-line.

• References:
• Ko B, et al. Poster SA-PO155. ASN Kidney Week; Nov. 4-7, 2021.
• Stoneman S, et al. Sem in Neph. 2020;doi:10.1016/j.semnephrol.2020.04.004.

• For extra info:
• Anna Burgner, MD, MEHP, is an assistant professor of drugs at Vanderbilt College Faculty of Drugs and can also be the affiliate program director for the nephrology fellowship. She serves because the director of the college’s inpatient dialysis clinic and is the affiliate editor for the Editorial Advisory Board for Nephrology Information & Points. She could be reached at anna.burgner@vumc.org.