SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE CATH LAB IS IT HELPING OR HURTING YOUR CAREER? Even when you’re not actively scrolling through your Twitter feed, posting on Facebook, or browsing photos on Instagram, the influence of social media is impossible to avoid. Its tendrils are everywhere — even in the cath lab. According to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, 90% of physicians are social media consumers. Even if they aren’t actually posting, these doctors are using social media platforms to look up information. This year, an informal poll taken at an American Psychiatric Association session revealed many doctors are also using social media to look up patients. Medscape reports that in the session, 27% of attendees said they’d used the platforms to “aid clinical decision-making” and 46% said they’d browsed patient accounts out of curiosity — which goes against APA Ethics Committee recommendations. Physician social media use is increasingly under the microscope. Cath Lab Digest recently published an article called “The Use and Abuse of Social Media in the Cath Lab” by Dr. Morton Kern, the chief of medicine at California’s Long Beach VAMedical Center. In it, Kern dove into the pros and cons of social media use. If you’re struggling to decide how much to post on Facebook or how long to spend on Twitter, make sure you consider both sides. PROS: • Social media can expand a doctor’s reach, helping them pull in new patients and support existing ones. • It’s a great way to share information quickly, like the results of new studies. • Social media can help doctors stay connected with one another and with reputable publications. • Most platforms encourage discussion, which can spark new ideas. CONS: • If you post your personal opinions, you could damage your professional persona, lose patients, and cause tension at work. • Information shared on social media is almost never peer-reviewed, so it’s difficult to parse what’s credible from what isn’t. Misinformation can spread quickly. • Social media can be a time-suck, and discussions are often hostile rather than productive. In short, if you’re planning to use social media, do it intelligently, without compromising patient confidentiality. As Kern puts it, “Don’t say something you wouldn’t want to see printed on the front page of The New York Times.”
TAKE A BREAK
800-944-0187 | 3
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online