Digital Social Networking & Health Care Education
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The document discusses the impact of digital social networking on health care education, emphasizing its prevalence among students and potential benefits for teaching professionalism and ethics. It raises questions about privacy and the effectiveness of social media for educational purposes, as well as its potential role in research and fundraising. Despite the challenges, there is interest in utilizing these platforms to create engaging learning environments and foster connections within the academic community.
Digital Social Networking & Health Care Education
- 1. Optometric Education 19 Volume 35, Number 1 / Fall 2009 ASCOTech: Digital Social Networking and Health Care Education o you have a presence on My Space (http://www. myspace.com/), Facebook (http://www.facebook. com/) and LinkedIn (http://www. linkedin.com/)? Do you tweet on Twitter (http://twitter.com/)? Do you broadcast your blogs (https://www. blogger.com/)? Your students certainly do. You would think that digital social networking would be an incredible op- portunity for us to develop “teaching moments” within a new social context not encumbered by the usual stressors and expectations of health care educa- tion. We know that 85% of college students use Facebook, with 60% logging in dai- ly. Of the college students who use Fa- cebook, almost 85% visit once a week, with 93% of them checking in at least once a month.1 Librarians in academia are being asked for help to set up Face- book pages and are taking an interest in how students use these new tools.2 Faculty from the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted a survey at a mid-sized public research university to understand how contact on Facebook was influencing student perceptions of faculty. They found that one-third of the students surveyed did not want faculty on Facebook because of possible iden- tity and privacy concerns, even though contact on Facebook had no effect on the students’ ratings of professors.3 Dominick M. Maino, OD, MEd, FAAO, FCOVD-A Geoffrey W. Goodfellow, OD, FAAO D Dr. Goodfellow is an associate professor at the Illinois College of Optometry. Dr. Maino is a professor at the Illinois College of Optometry. E-mails: ggoodfel@ico.edu or dmaino@ico.edu Figure 1 Facebook Page of Dr. Nathan Bonnilla-Warford’s Practice Do health care students use digital social networking as well? One study noted that social networking with Face- book was very common among medi- cal students. As many as 44.5% had an account and 64.3% said they used it frequently. Medical residents how- ever, used it less frequently (12.8%). A review of the students who used Face- book found that the majority of those evaluated (83.3%) listed at least one form of personally identifiable infor- mation, and only a third (37.5%) were made private. Unfortunately, some of the students’ Facebook pages displayed what could be interpreted as unprofes- sional content as well.4
- 2. Optometric Education 20 Volume 35, Number 1 / Fall 2009 Can social networking help us teach professionalism and ethics?5 Can we use Web-based professional development portfolios to promote “right, moral and professional behavior,” as our students journey toward becoming health care professionals?6 What about those of us who conduct research? Is it profes- sional and ethical to do research using Internet social networking sites? What guidelines should we use? What about privacy and consent issues?7 Currently there are more questions than answers. As far as we can tell from a PubMed search on this topic, those of us in op- tometric education have not even been asking the questions. So if we do not really know at this time how facing the music on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter and giving folks plenty of room on My Space can affect what we do as educators, do we know what the future of health care will look like when we are all interconnected?Are we teaching what our students need to know to survive in a technologically networked world? One article, “Take two aspirin and tweet me in the morn- ing…” suggests that at least some medi- cal practices will move beyond telemed- icine and electronic health care records toward something more intimate and personal.8 The office of Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD, FAAO,9 uses digital social net- working to educate patients, to help support charitable activities, to pro- mote business-to-business marketing,10 and to professionally market their many services to a wider community. They blog,11 Twitter12 (they have 629 followers!), and have even been given six stars on the Yelp rating service.13 Are we educating our students for this kind of open-to-the-world 21st century? I (DM) have discovered that one of the easiest ways to keep my students cur- rent on research in the areas of eye and vision care of children and special needs patients is to blog it at them.14 This al- lows the student to choose which ar- ticles to look up and read, whether they are on campus or at an off-campus af- filiated site. I remind them by a quick “tweet” and an announcement on my Facebook page when my blog is up- dated. They have also been known to make comments and send me messages about these articles so that “unofficial” teaching/learning can take place. I can only imagine what might happen if I incorporated digital social networking into the courses and laboratories that I teach. Would learning occur more readily? How do optometry school administra- tors use the social networking sites? Dr. Taline Farra, Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Admissions at the New England College of Optometry, tells us: “We have been using Facebook as a way to keep contact with our incoming students. Last year, we set up a page for the class of 2012, and it was a venue where students could meet each other virtually before they arrived and a place where they could ask questions of our staff. We are in the process of setting up a general info group for … ques- tions people may have.” Other schools are also dipping their digital feet into the cyberspace pond as well, but cau- tiously. Are there other uses for Internet inter- facing other than research and student recruitment? With dwindling fiscal re- sources and alumni support constraints during these difficult economic times, can the schools and colleges of optom- etry use digital social networking as a mechanism to raise funds? Fund Rais- ing Success15 notes that “… as of July 2009, there are more than 6 million users on Facebook older than 55, with total growth of 513.7% in the previ- ous six months alone. That makes your main donor demographic … the fast- est-growing Facebook user segment.” They also state: “Online outreach is a Figure 2 Dr. Dominick Maino’s Blog
- 3. Optometric Education 21 Volume 35, Number 1 / Fall 2009 cost-effective and efficient way to reach people at a time when we’re all low on resources,” and “Word-of-mouth mar- keting has historically been the most powerful way to engage people with your brand, and social marketing is really word-of-mouth marketing at its core…. It is a relational way to engage the communities that support your brand and mission.” Can you Twit- ter dollars or Facebook endowments? These sites have not yet been noted as being viable fund raisers at this time, but large organizations like United Way16 and Easter Seals17 see them as of- fering great potential. Finally, Facebook itself offers Facebook For Good,18 a site where you can share your stories about how Facebook has helped individuals give back to their communities and ef- fect positive change. Will learning in a socially intercon- nected, digital environment lead to a more personal approach toward ac- quiring knowledge? Will this allow our students to learn professionalism and ethics appropriately? Or will it all be- come a collection of online connected “National Enquirers” of sensationalism with a total lack of regard for personal privacy and standards expected from a more genteel and civilized society? Will the schools and colleges of optometry use cyber-socializing for research, stu- dent recruitment, and fund raising? It is obvious there are numerous questions. Who will do the research? Drs. Maino and Goodfellow invite you to offer your feedback about this and all ASCOTech columns and to make sug- gestions for future columns by emailing dmaino@ico.edu and/or GGoodfel@ico. edu. Please visit http://www.Mainos- Memos.blogspot.com as well. References 1. TechCrunch. http://www.tech- crunch.com/2005/09/07/85-of- college-students-use-facebook. Ac- cessed 07-09. 2. Mack D, Behler A, Roberts B, Rin- land E. Reaching Students with Facebook: Data and Best Practices. Electronic J Academ Spec Librari- anship. 2007;8. http://southern- librarianship.icaap.org/content/ v08n02/mack_d01.html. Accessed 07-09. 3. HewittA,ForteA.Crossingbound- aries: Identity management and student/faculty relationships on Facebook. http://www.cc.gatech. edu/~aforte/HewittForteCSCW- Poster2006.pdf. Accessed 07-09. 4. Thompson LA, Dawson K, et al. The intersection of online social networking with medical pro- fessionalism. Gen Intern Med. 2008;23: 954-957. 5. Farnan JM, Paro JA, Higa J, Edel- son J, Arora VM. The YouTube generation: implications for medi- cal professionalism. Perspect Biol Med. 2008;51:517-524. 6. Kalet AL, Sanger J, Chase J, et al. Pro- moting professionalism through an online professional development port- folio: successes, joys, and frustrations. Acad Med. 2007;82:1065-1072. 7. Moreno MA, Fost NC, Christakis DA.Research ethics in the MySpace era. Pediatrics. 2008;121:157-161. 8. HawnC.Taketwoaspirinandtweet me in the morning: how Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are reshaping health care. Health Aff (Millwood). 2009;28:361-368. 9. http://www.visionsource-brighteyes. com/index.cfm?fuseaction=site.staff. Figure 3 Accessed 07-09 10. BrightEyes news Tweet Up. http:// www.brighteyesnews.com/index. php?s=tweetup accessed 07-09. 11. BrightEyesNews.http://www.bright- eyesnews.com. Accessed 07-09. 12. BrightEyesTwitter. http://twitter.com/ BrightEyesTampa. Accessed 07-09. 13. Yelp. http://www.yelp.com/biz/ bright-eyes-family-vision-care- tampa. Accessed 07-09. 14. Mainos Memos. http://www.main- osmemos.blogspot.com. Accessed 07-09. 15. Fund Raising Success. http://com- mon.fundraisingsuccessmag.com/ items/biz/fs/pdfs/solutions/fs_so- lutions_whitepaper_WP0809.pdf. Accessed 08-09. 16. United Way. http://apps.facebook. com/causes/view_cause/9354. Ac- cessed 08-09. 17. Easter Seals. http://www.facebook. com/easterseals. Accessed 08-09. 18. Facebook for Good.http://www. facebook.com/facebookforgood. Accessed 08-09. Librarians at the Carl F. Shepard Library at Illinois College of Optometry use Facebook to keep in touch with students and faculty.