TF-6 The Use of Social Media in Emergency Medical Resident Education

Abstract

The explosion of the use of social media in the last few years, since the widespread adoption of the Internet, has dominated the delivery of news and information. Over the last several years educational resources have risen in quality and quantity. It is becoming a more widely used, well written and some are peer reviewed. There is so much knowledge out there that not including this in our routine academic curriculum seems short sighted. Many residents and medical students already use apps and their smart phones on a routine basis in the emergency department. The goal of this project is to expose the residents to free online access resources in an effort to help them incorporate these resources as a fundamental part of their education. These social media sources also need to be critically analyzed, which many of them are not, for accuracy and therefore another goal will be to illustrate that these are not medical resources that can be used without rigorous verification and research to their validity. Also to illustrate the ways our smart phones, tablets and computers can be used to enhance their learning experience. The curriculum is weekly online meetings. These will be a combination of video and audio software. Emphasis will be on using several software programs in an effort to increase a variety of platforms. These will be determined by the number of attendees and subject matter to be covered that month. The resource pool will include podcasts, Web sites, online literature reviews, blogs, apps, Twitter feeds, and app reviews. Emergency medicine faculty and residents will lead these sessions. There will be links and handouts provided of all the resources covered. This is an ongoing monthly meeting that will expose the residents to the wealth of information in social media. Also we hope to encourage discussion about the lack of peer review and validity of the resources. This ongoing project will give the residents a better means of accessing this information as well as helping them to critically analyze the data. This venue for information will not diminish in scope or quantity and it is our job to ensure that our residents use this information correctly.