Social Media and Medical Education in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has brought virtual web-based learning to the forefront of medical education as training programs adapt to physical distancing challenges while maintaining the rigorous standards of medical training. Social media has unique and partially untapped potential to supplement formal medical education. Objective The aim of this review is to provide a summary of the incentives, applications, challenges, and pitfalls of social media–based medical education for both trainees and educators. Methods We performed a literature review via PubMed of medical research involving social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and podcasts. Papers were reviewed for inclusion based on the integrity and power of the study. Results The unique characteristics of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and podcasts endow them with unique communication capabilities that serve different educational purposes in both formal and informal education settings. However, contemporary medical education curricula lack widespread guidance on meaningful use, application, and deployment of social media in medical education. Conclusions Clinicians and institutions must evolve to embrace the use of social media platforms for medical education. Health care professionals can approach social media engagement in the same ethical manner that they would with patients in person; however, health care institutions ultimately must enable their health care professionals to achieve this by enacting realistic social media policies. Institutions should appoint clinicians with strong social media experience to leadership roles to spearhead these generational and cultural changes. Further studies are needed to better understand how health care professionals can most effectively use social media platforms as educational tools. Ultimately, social media is here to stay, influencing lay public knowledge and trainee knowledge. Clinicians and institutions must embrace this complementary modality of trainee education and champion social media as a novel distribution platform that can also help propagate truth in a time of misinformation, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resident-as-teacher to provide multidisciplinary online medical education on Instagram

“…2,3 Many popular Instagram accounts that provide medical education content are run by practising physicians in specific disciplines, and their content is often unstructured and not designed specifically for medical students. 4 Resident-as-teacher programs have been implemented in various specialities. 5 Residents may serve a great resource in providing online medical education.…”

YouTube Videos Related to the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Content Analysis

“…Almost 9 years after the nuclear disaster, environmental and food safety issues are again drawing worldwide attention [5,6]. Social media can be defined as interactive communication media that have been fused into human lives worldwide [7,8]. YouTube (Alphabet Incorporated) has become the most popular video-sharing platform worldwide and is the second most visited website, with 2 billion monthly users [9,10].…”

Lessons Learned from Developing Digital Teaching Modules for Medical Student Education in Neurosurgery during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Suggested methods include collaborative VBL, collaborative video analysis, collaborative video authoring, and the use of video annotation tools [16]. Katz et al [17] recently reviewed numerous examples of how social media platforms (SMPs) were successfully deployed for the transfer of medical knowledge to professionals, students, and patients. With SMPs, however, caution must be taken to avoid the spread of misinformation [17].…”

“…As a consequence, digital literacy is, more than ever, considered a prerequisite for students and teachers [12,14,17]. Future publications in the field of digital education are expected to provide guidance for, to evaluate, and to refine recently adopted methods [17,18].…”