Social Media use within medical education: a systematic review to develop a pilot questionnaire on how social media can be best used at BSMS

Abstract: Background: Since the early 2000s social media has become a major part of our daily lives, and over the past decade it has found its way into the medical profession. Despite its ubiquity, only 5 systematic reviews exist on the subject of social medial use within medical education. The reviews conclude that there are positive correlations linked to social media use however the studies are restricted by the same limitations: a lack of quantitative data and the fact that social media research fast becomes outdated. This review will therefore examine the latest studies in order to identify which questions remain to be answered and what areas need further development in order for social media to become a credible resource within medical education. The information gained from this process will be amalgamated to create a valid questionnaire which will produce quantitative data. Methods: A systematic review of Pubmed, Cochrane, PsychINFO, ERIC & Scopus was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The search was from 1st January 2014 to the 12th January 2017 and included keywords linked with social media and medical education. 27 papers were identified: 12 qualitative and 15 quantitative. From this data a questionnaire was drafted and put to a focus group in order for it to be validated. Results: Six major themes were identified and analysed: community & interactivity, communication & feedback, learning theories, social media vs traditional didactic lectures, role of faculty and professionalism. Quantitative data was limited but highlighted the efficiency of social media use especially when Facebook and Twitter were used. After the analysis a validated questionnaire was produced. Conclusion: Social media can be a useful tool within the medical curriculum if implemented correctly. The final questionnaire can be used to generate quantitative data on the following questions: which platforms are most effective and for what purposes? How beneficial is social media to teaching? and What do students understand the benefits/disadvantages of academic social media platforms to be? Keywords: Social Media, Medical Education, Facebook, Twitter, Systematic Revie

Does longitudinal Twitter use complement all anatomy learning? A comparison between two cohorts

Background: Students of today’s generation are regularly using social media to access and learn anatomical information. To avoid losing the skill of engaging with students, anatomy educators have been increasing their efforts to use popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to support their student’s learning. At the University of Southampton a Twitter hashtag (#nlm2soton) was successfully used to support Year 2 medical students during the difficult head, neck and neuroanatomy module by enhancing communication, boosting morale and creating a supportive network amongst students and educators. A similar Twitter hashtag was subsequently created for Year 1 medical students completing the prerequisite sister module called nervous & locomotor 1 in an attempt to investigate whether the benefits of using Twitter are transferable across anatomy topics. Methods: The nlm1soton hashtag (#nlm1soton) was created and displayed (via a widget) on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard) for a cohort of 215 BM5 Year 1 medical students. Participants completed an end of module survey to explore perceptions and attitudes towards its use which was approved by the University’s research ethics committee. Year 1 responses were compared with that of Year 2 students who had used the #nlm2soton hashtag. Results: Year 2 students viewed (P 20 years old made contributions to the hashtags (P = 0.1055). Overall, Year 2 students perceived their #nlm2soton hashtag to be significantly more useful for aspects of learning, compared to the Year 1 cohort. Conclusion: This study found that Year 1 medical students were less receptive to Twitter use in learning anatomy and used the hashtag significantly less often than their Year 2 counterparts. This would suggest that the optimal use of longitudinal Twitter use in anatomy education is most probably dependent on a number of criteria. Preliminary evidence suggests that important variables to consider may include age of students, module length, module difficulty and teacher engagement

Evaluating a dementia learning community: exploratory study and research implications

Background  Access times for, the costs and overload of hospital services are an increasingly salient issue for healthcare managers in many countries. Rising demand for hospital care has been attributed partly to unplanned admissions for older people, and among these partly to the increasing prevalence of dementia. The paper makes a preliminary evaluation of the logic model of a Dementia Learning Community (DLC) intended to reduce unplanned hospital admissions from care homes of people with dementia. A dementia champion in each DLC care home trained other staff in dementia awareness and change management with the aims of changing work routines, improving quality of life, and reducing demands on external services.  Methods  Controlled mixed methods realistic evaluation comparing 13 intervention homes with 10 controls in England during 2013–15. Each link in the assumed logic model was tested to find whether that link appeared to exist in the DLC sites, and if so whether its effects appeared greater there than in control sites, in terms of selected indicators of quality of life (DCM Well/Ill-Being, QUALID, end-of-life planning); and impacts on ambulance call-outs and hospital admissions.  Results  The training was implemented as planned, and triggered cycles of Plan-Do-Study-Act activity in all the intervention care homes. Residents’ well-being scores, measured by dementia care mapping, improved markedly in half of the intervention homes but not in the other half, where indeed some scores deteriorated markedly. Most other care quality indicators studied did not significantly improve during the study period. Neither did ambulance call-out or emergency hospital admission rates.  Conclusions  PDSA cycles appeared to be the more ‘active ingredient’ in this intervention. The reasons why they impacted on well-being in half of the intervention sites, and not the others, require further research. A larger, longer study would be necessary to measure definitively any impacts on unplanned hospital admissions. Our evidence suggested revising the DLC logic model to include care planning and staff familiarisation with residents’ personal histories and needs as steps towards improving residents’ quality of life

Online interaction and "real information flow": Contrasts between talking about interdisciplinarity and achieving interdisciplinary collaboration

In this article we study how members of an interdisciplinary research team use an online forum for communicating about their research project. We use the concepts of “community of practice” and “connectivity” to consider the online interaction within a wider question of how people from different academic traditions “do” interdisciplinarity. The online forum for this Grey and Pleasant Land project did not take off as hoped, even after a series of interventions and amendments, and we consider what the barriers were and how they might be overcome. Barriers to involvement included participants’ expectations of interaction and collaboration--expectation that real interaction happens elsewhere, tensions between academic discourse and forum talk norms, unfamiliarity with the technology, and different conceptions of appropriate academic discussion. We suggest that common academic practice does not prepare us well for creating interdisciplinary research communities through online collaboration tools, whereas such tools are our best bet currently for including geographically dispersed members in collaborative projects. Therefore, careful planning and competence building would be necessary if such tools are to be used in collaborative research. Suggested interventions, based on our experience, include providing a more focused forum, making technical support easily available, and setting up particular tasks or items to debate, within a preset, synchronous timeframe, focusing on issues relevant to the project at that time

Can Twitter be used to enhance student engagement and learning of Neuroanatomy in medical education?

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Twitter: an effective learning tool within medical education

Educational social media platforms such as dedicated Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags are increasingly being used by anatomy educators as learning support tools with positive outcomes such as: increasing student engagement with the subject of anatomy, facilitating communication with educators and reducing student anxiety levels in the lead up to assessments by offering learning support information. There have been less reports on whether these platforms impact on student’s anatomy knowledge. One previous investigation demonstrated that the frequency of student engagement with a dedicated Twitter hashtag did not increase their exam scores, however the methodology did not provide specific learning feedback opportunities to students. Since then, Twitter introduced a polling tool. This project investigated whether the polling tool could effectively be used to deliver regular MCQ style questions (followed by feedback) to students and whether student’s use of this tool had an effect on exam scores. Second year medical students enrolled on the Musculoskeletal and Immunity Module 2015 (n=140) at Brighton Sussex Medical School were offered the #m204anatomy Twitter hashtag as a learning support tool which included weekly Twitter polls questioning student’s anatomy knowledge. Students were invited to complete a questionnaire asking whether they had answered Twitter polls and for consent to use their exam scores to compare against their use of the polls. Student opinions on the hashtag were also obtained during a focus group with five students. Ninety-three students successfully completed the questionnaire and gave consent. 62% of students didn’t used the Twitter polls and their mean anatomy exam score was 59.7%. 38% of students did answer the Twitter polls and their mean exam score was 67.2%, which showed to be significantly higher (p = 0.012) than those who did not use the Twitter polling tool. This indicates that the Twitter polling tool can be used as a formative assessment tool to enhance student anatomy knowledge. However, the majority of students are reluctant to engage with educational social media platforms and findings from this study indicate this is due to a fear that students will be identified as lacking knowledge and breaching professionalism guidelines. Keywords: Social media, Twitter, Medical education, Professionalism, Learning experienc

Winning over hearts and minds: using Twitter to enhance the student learning experience in neuroanatomy

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Social media guidelines: a review for health professionals and faculty members

Background The rising societal use of social media has encouraged health professionals to use social media in their professional activities; however, this can be a daunting task, particularly for those who are uncertain about the boundaries for the professional use of social media. This article summarises the guidelines provided by medical governing bodies on social media use and provides practical advice on how social media can be used, which is transferrable across the health professions. Methods Nine guidance documents published by medical governing bodies in major international English‐speaking countries were reviewed and analysed to identify their key common messages. Findings Five key themes were identified across all of the guidance documents, as follows: maintain patient confidentiality; defamation is unacceptable; privacy cannot be guaranteed; responsibility to maintain public trust; and reasons to use social media. Conclusions The guidelines predominantly focus on the risks of using social media. Although this is necessary, it is likely to inhibit the exploration of the potential uses of social media in health care education and practice. All of the guidance documents from governing bodies encourage the use of social media to engage with patients and to network with colleagues; however, there is relatively little practical guidance on how to use social media as a health professional. This article offers some practical advice for faculty members who wish to run development sessions on how to use social media for professional purposes