Social Networks in Medical Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Introduction:Beginning with the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the Internet was a significant additional tool in the education of teenagers. Later, it takes more and more significant role in educating students and professionals.Goal:The aim of this paper is to investigate, to what extent and how effectively the Internet is used today by students of biomedical faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, more specifically, this paper will research the implications of the well-known social networks in education of students and health professionals in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We compared the ratio of using Social networks by students for spreading medical information as basics for health education at medical faculties at 3 universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H).Results and discussion:The results showed that only 11.6% of professors use Facebook type of social network, 49.3% of them have a profile on BiomedExperts scientific social network and 79% have available articles in the largest biomedical literature database MEDLINE. Students are also frequent users of general social networks and educational clips from You Tube, which they prefer to utilize considerably more than the other types of professionals. Students rarely use the facilities of professional social networks, because they contain mainly data and information needed for further, postgraduate professional education.Conclusion:In B&H there are decent conditions for the use of online social networks in the education of health professionals. While students enthusiastically embraced these opportunities, this is not so much a case with health care professionals in practice; while scientific health care workers have not shown greater interest in the use of social networks, both for purposes of scientific research and in terms of self-education and training of students.