Social Media Use in Medical Education

Abstract

We are living in an era of technology where smart phones and hence social media has entered into many aspects of our life. Many professions are using social media to improve communication between colleagues. Social media tools are gaining attention in medical education as well. Objective: To explore the potential of WhatsApp as an instructional strategy for 4 th Year MBBS students in Ophthalmology. Methods: We made two groups of students on Whats-App one for males and one for females. Topic of lecture , relevant images of taught topic and MCQs and SEQs were shared in both groups and students were encouraged to ask questions if they had any. After ten lectures the students were asked to give their feedback on our activity of WhatsApp group on an anonymous questionnaire. Results: Two hundred and thirty four students, 145 (62.0%) female and 86 (36.8%) males students filled in the anonymous questionnaire. One hundred and eighty nine students (88.77%) were using social media to learn medicine while 45 students (19.23%) were not. Sixty seven students (29.39%) were using both WhatsApp and Facebook, 65 students (28.51%) were using Facebook, 57 students (25%) were using Whats-App. Sixty percent of students were using social media once or more than twice a day. Eighty eight (63.8%) female students and 66 (77.7%) male students ranked this activity as high or above. To the open ended question we got appreciative comments and some suggestion. Conclusion: WhatsApp is an effective social media tool to motivate, augmentand perhaps improve the learning of undergraduates in addition to traditional teaching .

Measuring the extent and nature of use of Social Networking Sites in Medical Education (SNSME) by university students: Results of a multi-center study

“…This finding necessitates increasing awareness and interventions in existing curricula by embedding SNSs into instructional strategies. The value of embedding SNS-based instructional strands into medical curricula has been reaffirmed by a systematic review by Cheston et al who have argued that interventions using SNSs foster opportunities of engaging learners, professional enhancement and effective feedback [13]. Nevertheless, the authors have cautioned the use of social media due to privacy and security issues and technical troubleshooting.…”

A Digital Ethnography of Medical Students who Use Twitter for Professional Development

“…28 In Twitter, the amount of community structure is correlated with the number followers a person has. 30 Network analysis metrics of the key informant subnetwork reflect a social network community as opposed to an information network community. 29 In other words, the students we studied tend to have social, reciprocal relationships on Twitter more so than simple information retrieval, and this may account for some of its added value.…”

“…30 Some medical educators have advocated for the use of Twitter, specifically, as a professional tool. 11,12 In their pilot studies, George and Dellasega noted that Twitter, as one of several social media platforms incorporated into two humanities courses for fourth-year students, augmented learning and collaboration and allowed real-time communication between learners and instructors outside the classroom.…”

The use of free online educational resources by Canadian emergency medicine residents and program directors

“…[6][7][8] Understanding whether learners and their teachers differ in use and choice of free resources is an important next step to comprehending the impact of OERs on medical education. 9,10 Free OERs vary in content; some are highly referenced, registered with universities, incorporate peer-review processes, and offer continuing medical education credit, whereas others propagate inaccurate information. 11,12 Generational trends suggest that the current cohort of EM learners will be drawn to these nontraditional resources to a greater extent than their teachers, but how students and teachers choose resources has not been well defined.…”