Attai, Deanna J.

The use of social media continues to increase in health care and academia. Health care practice, particularly the oncologic field, is constantly changing because of new knowledge, evidence-based research, clinical trials, and government policies. Therefore, oncology trainees and professionals continue to strive to stay up-to-date with practice guidelines, research, and skills. Although social media as an educational and professional development tool is no longer completely new to medicine and has been embraced, it is still under-researched in terms of various outcomes. Social media plays several key roles in professional development and academic advancement. We reviewed the literature to evaluate how social media can be used for professional development and academic promotion of oncology professionals.

11041 Background: Twitter (TW) is an essential tool in the medical community. Few studies have examined the use of TW by medical trainees. We aimed to assess its utilization among trainees in hematology-oncology related areas (HORAs). Methods: 576 training programs in HORAs were obtained. We contacted a potential pool of 3,142 trainees. A 50 item survey was distributed between 2/2019-5/2019, focusing on: demographics, professional use, attitudes toward TW, and patient interactions. Responses were analyzed using parametric descriptive statistics. Results: 442 responses (14% response rate) were received; 203 (46%) used a TW account for professional activities. See table for demographics. The most common reasons for using TW were: continuous education (73%), dissemination of information (62%), and networking (62%). > 80% of users have positive views on using TW for: promoting academic discussions (92%), trainees education (89%), and conference networking (83%). 50 (25%) have used TW for collaborations, with abstracts and papers being the most common (20%). Most agreed or strongly agreed that TW: is a useful education tool (89%), and might be useful for career advancement (85%). The most common challenges were: the value of TW content can be decreased by irrelevant content and biased sources (64%), not peer-reviewed (51%), and difficulty searching information (50%). 68% considered that programs should promote the engagement of trainees, but only 21% reported instruction in the use of TW. 83% agree or strongly agree that TW is useful for physicians and patient interactions, but 82% have concerns about legal repercussions. Conclusions: Almost half of trainees in HORAs use TW for professional activities. The most common uses are for education, dissemination of information and networking. Most trainees that use TW have positive views regarding education and academic collaborations. Use of Twitter may strengthen trainees’ education, provide mentorship opportunities, and promote career advancement. Challenges on TW use should continue to be addressed. [Table: see text]

Twitter use has increased among patients with cancer, advocates, and oncology professionals. Hashtags, a form of metadata, can be used to share content, organize health information, and create virtual communities of interest. Cancer-specific hashtags modeled on a breast cancer community, #bcsm, led to the development of a structured set of hashtags called the cancer tag ontology. In this article, we review how these hashtags have worked with the aim of describing our experience from 2011 to 2017. We discuss useful guidelines for the development and maintenance of health-oriented communities on Twitter, including possible challenges to community sustainability and opportunities for future improvement and research.