An Electronic Mail List for a Network of Family Practice Residency Programs: A Good Idea?

Abstract

The use of an electronic mailing list as a means of communication among faculty in a network of university-affiliated family practice residency programs was evaluated. Faculty were automatically subscribed to the list by the list owner. Messages were tracked for one year and a written evaluation survey was sent. Ninety two messages were sent, with 52% of the messages being posted information. While most (65%) survey respondents reported reading 61% or more of the messages, with only 33% ever actually posted at least one message to the list. Given that faculty were automatically subscribed and that there were only 84 total members, the list may have failed to reach a critical mass of active participants. It is concluded that an email list for network faculty did not function as an online discussion group, although it was extremely beneficial as a way of posting information to affiliated residency faculty.

Realizing the potential of real-time clinical collaboration in maternal–fetal and obstetric medicine through WhatsApp

“…17 There have been similar reports on the success of existing listservers by some other groups, [18][19][20] although some others reported that although they functioned well as information boards, they did not function effectively for scientific case discussions. 21,22 Given the mixed experience with the use of email listservers, our focus was to specifically assess the use of mobile phone applications in facilitating online clinical discussions. There are a number of online medical communities on publicly accessible websites and also on different platforms including, but not limited to, Facebook, Googleþ and Twitter.…”

“…17 There have been similar reports on the success of existing listservers by some other groups, 18–20 although some others reported that although they functioned well as information boards, they did not function effectively for scientific case discussions. 21,22…”