By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    back pain
    No More Aches! A Guide To Effective Back Pain Relief
    March 28, 2024
    workplace first aid
    First Aid Training Can Improve Workplace Health & Safety
    June 27, 2024
    U.S. Drug Shortage Crisis Creates Greater Health Risks
    September 4, 2024
    Latest News
    How Probate Planning Shapes the Future of Your Estate and Family Care
    July 17, 2025
    Beyond Nutrition: Everyday Foods That Support Whole-Body Health
    June 15, 2025
    The Wide-Ranging Benefits of Magnesium Supplements
    June 11, 2025
    The Best Home Remedies for Migraines
    June 5, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    2/365 teenage pregnancy
    Make IUDs and Implants More Affordable and Accessible for Teens
    September 25, 2012
    Health Insurance Coverage for Legal Immigrants in Massachusetts: Doing the Right Thing and the Smart Thing
    January 7, 2012
    Image
    Terminating the Doctor-Patient Relationship …
    December 21, 2012
    Latest News
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
    How Health Choices and Legal Actions Intersect After an Injury
    July 17, 2025
    How communities and healthcare providers can address slip and fall injuries with legal awareness
    July 17, 2025
    Let Your Lawyer Handle the Work Before You Pay Medical Costs
    July 6, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: A Critical Use of Social Media in Medicine is for Learning
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > eHealth > Social Media > A Critical Use of Social Media in Medicine is for Learning
Social Media

A Critical Use of Social Media in Medicine is for Learning

BrianSMcGowan
BrianSMcGowan
Share
4 Min Read
SHARE

The Bleak Reality

The Bleak Reality

The evidence base supporting medical practice is growing at an exponential rate, and the time when any one physician could stay abreast of this evidence base has long since passed. Physicians in the primary care field and physicians in data-intensive and rapidly changing specialties such as oncology bear a particularly heavy burden in trying to manage this avalanche of information. Moreover, it is expected that newer forms of medically relevant information (comparative effectiveness research, patient-reported outcomes, personalized genomic and proteomic analyses, etc.) will need to be seamlessly integrated into medical practice.

As a result, within the next five years, the evolution of medicine will face an alarming bottleneck when the systems to support the publication, dissemination, uptake, and integration of new information will likely fail.

More Read

Telehealth Tapping into Social Influence
Beyond the Buzz: How to Use the New Klout for Healthcare Marketing
Zyrtec’s Healthcare Social Media Campaign
#doctors20 KeyNote Video Duo: Michael Seres and Marion O’Connor
7 Simple Ways to Strengthen Your Hospital’s Online Brand

(Perhaps not the best way to start a post on being ‘social’)

Social Learning in Medicine

Social learning theory has long been explored in the professions of medicine and education. In the past these explorations focused on simple connection derived from training pedigree, geography, and shared memberships in medical societies or associations. But with the emergence of social media the concepts of social learning can encompass a myriad of nontraditional connections and uses.

It is my hypothesis that docs may use social media in three separate ‘meaningful’ ways:

1. As a means of medical practice—providing direct patient care
2. As a public health communication channel—providing a credible opinion and review of breaking medical news and reports for the public
3. As a means of supporting their own continuing professional development—providing a learning and decision-making resource based on the collective knowledge of their own network

In the beginning of 2011 I, along with collaborators from Baylor (@doctor_v), Johns Hopkins (@rsm2800), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (@mwasko), set out to better understand this third definition of the meaningful use of social media—how docs are using social media to share medical information and support their own continuing professional development.

Stay Tuned for Our Initial Peer-Reviewed Data Set

In research presented at the Medicine 2.0 meeting last fall at Stanford University, we reported for the first time on the meaningful adoption of social media as a professional learning resource, but we barely scratched the surface of the stories our data has to tell…and now it looks like our fuller dataset will be finally published in JMIR within the next month!!!

In the weeks that follow the publication of this research I will be taking special effort to explore and share the dataset in its fullest and I would love this community to join me.  There are countless additional questions to be asked – some may be answerable with the existing dataset, others may take additional research – and we would be foolish to believe that this community can’t help us craft better and more insightful research questions.

Please keep an eye out for this research and please do not hesitate to contact me if you think there are other questions you are ready to explore.

 

Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
Global Healthcare Policy & Law
July 17, 2025
paramedics in surgical gloves and masks
How Health Choices and Legal Actions Intersect After an Injury
Health care
July 16, 2025
a woman giving a key
How Probate Planning Shapes the Future of Your Estate and Family Care
Health
July 16, 2025
a woman with kinesio tapes on her back arm
How communities and healthcare providers can address slip and fall injuries with legal awareness
Health care
July 16, 2025

You Might also Like

mhealth
Medical EducationMedical RecordsMobile HealthNewsSocial Media

Daniel Kraft: Health Media for the Future

March 1, 2013

Humor: An Underused Tool in Healthcare Marketing

August 14, 2015

Keep the Social Media Conversation Moving

October 21, 2014
Stethoscope_and_Laptop_Computer_-_Nci-vol-9713-300
eHealthSocial Media

Is Your Medical Practice’s Website Optimized for Conversions?

February 22, 2016
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?