How we used two social media tools to enhance aspects of active learning during lectures

Adoption studies of social media use by clinicians were systematically reviewed, up to July 26th, 2011, to determine the extent of adoption and highlight trends in institutional responses. This search led to 370 articles, of which 50 were selected for review, including 15 adoption surveys. The definition of social media is evolving rapidly; the authors define it broadly to include social networks and group-curated reference sites such as Wikipedia. Facebook accounts are very common among health science students (64–96%) and less so for professional clinicians (13–47%). Adoption rates have increased sharply in the past 4 years. Wikipedia is widely used as a reference tool. Attempts at incorporating social media into clinical training have met with mixed success. Posting of unprofessional content and breaches of patient confidentiality, especially by students, are not uncommon and have prompted calls for social media guidelines.

The use of online social networks (OSNs) among physicians and physicians-in-training, the extent of patient-doctor interactions within OSNs, and attitudes among these groups toward use of OSNs is not well described. To quantify the use of OSNs, patient interactions within OSNs, and attitudes toward OSNs among medical students (MS), resident physicians (RP), and practicing physicians (PP) in the United States. A random, stratified mail survey was sent to 1004 MS, 1004 RP, and 1004 PP between February and May 2010. Percentage of respondents reporting OSN use, the nature and frequency of use; percentage of respondents reporting friend requests by patients or patients' family members, frequency of these requests, and whether or not they were accepted; attitudes toward physician use of OSNs and online patient interactions. The overall response rate was 16.0% (19.8% MS, 14.3% RP, 14.1% PP). 93.5% of MS, 79.4% of RP, and 41.6% of PP reported usage of OSNs. PP were more likely to report having visited the profile of a patient or patient's family member (MS 2.3%, RP 3.9%, PP 15.5%), and were more likely to have received friend requests from patients or their family members (MS 1.2%, RP 7.8%, PP 34.5%). A majority did not think it ethically acceptable to interact with patients within OSNs for either social (68.3%) or patient-care (68.0%) reasons. Almost half of respondents (48.7%) were pessimistic about the potential for OSNs to improve patient-doctor communication, and a majority (79%) expressed concerns about maintaining patient confidentiality. Personal OSN use among physicians and physicians-in-training mirrors that of the general population. Patient-doctor interactions take place within OSNs, and are more typically initiated by patients than by physicians or physicians-in-training. A majority of respondents view these online interactions as ethically problematic.