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#MedTwitter #DoctorsOfInstagram #MedEdu: How to Navigate the Social Media Minefield

Oct 15, 2020

Written by Noa Kolkovski

Noa is a third year medical student at the University of Melbourne.

Social media is one of the medical profession’s most underrated tool – it can provide us with a unique opportunity to connect and network with our peers, advocate for public health and social issues, bring credible information to the forefront of public awareness and showcase diversity within medicine. Our presence on social media can even lead to some amazing career opportunities around the globe!

Whether you are a doctor or a medical student, getting started on social media can be intimidating. So we’ve asked some doctors who have done it – and succeeded – to share their experiences, thoughts, and advice to help you get started.

Dr Sarah Gray (@rosesarered_23) 

Dr Sarah Gray is a Surgical Resident Medical Officer (and tattoo studio owner!) who actively promotes diversity and creative self-expression within the medical and surgical fields. Dr Gray started out on social media as a tattoo model (she was Miss Inked Australia 2017!) and coach.

I’ve always been very open about who I am, I don’t try and hide my personality and I guess not fitting the mould as what one would call a ‘traditional doctor’ has seen others look up to me as a role model for diversity within medicine”

1. Why do you think it is important for doctors and medical professionals to engage with social media? 

Ultimately doctors are humans first, which means we should be able to live our life within the social norms that others do. Our title doesn’t define us and we should still be entitled to have the same life outside of work that others can. This includes the use of social media. Of course, like anything we do day to day, if it is to be in the public eye it should be done so with the understanding that we have a professional responsibility to adhere to a code of ethics and ensure we aren’t being ‘unprofessional’ in the sense that we are saying or doing anything illegal, harmful or unethical. I certainly think that medical professionals should help use their social media presence to promote health literacy if able or to correct misinformation should they see it. 

2. Do you feel there are ‘unwritten’ rules around how doctors should look and behave on social media? What are the risks in breaking those rules and what are the benefits?

This debate around ‘professionalism and social media’ really grinds my gears personally. As I said in the above response, doctors are humans first, we have lives outside of work, we eat bad food, wear bikinis to the beach, drink alcohol (in moderation) and generally exist as humans should. We shouldn’t be put onto some hierarchical pedestal where we are judged differently or be made to adhere to a different set of rules outside of work than anyone else does. When we are at work we take our roles very seriously and patient care, ethics and professionalism always come first, just as it wouldn’t be appropriate to wear a bikini to work, it wouldn’t be appropriate to wear surgical scrubs to the beach. I do often feel there are ‘unwritten rules’ within medicine in its entirety as a profession about how doctors should look, which needs to change. We should treat all our professional colleagues as equal and with respect, regardless of their seniority, race, gender or appearance.

I feel there is still very much an outdated culture alive in medicine which controls these ‘unwritten rules’ and through fear of repercussions associated with ‘being yourself’ in the public eye or whilst at work, it is scaring off some of our best and brightest from being true to themselves or even joining the profession to start with, which needs to stop.

3. Do you think doctors and medical professionals have a responsibility to be more vocal and engage with the broader community to actively combat medical misinformation? 

Unfortunately, in the day and age of ‘Doctor Google’ everyone thinks they are an expert these days online. I think we do have a professional responsibility to engage with the broader community if someone is spreading misinformation that is potentially harmful, otherwise I feel it’s better to avoid if able. 

4. Have you had any opportunities open up by engaging with social media?

I’ve been very blessed to be able to use my platform to help encourage many people from around the world to apply for a career within the medical profession that they were otherwise too scared to do so based on their appearance. I’ve been able to use it to network with other medical professionals worldwide and form good friendships! I’ve also been able to help bring tattooing into a positive light by showing others that it does so much good, such as the work my studio does with areola tattooing for breast cancer survivors post mastectomy and that just because you are colourful doesn’t mean you’re not competent.

5. What did you wish you knew when you started engaging with social media?

I guess looking back as a teenager or young adult first using social media, to remember that everything you put online always has a digital footprint. 

6. What are your top 3 tips for doctors and medical students aspiring to start engaging with social media? 

  1. Be yourself 
  2. Be yourself 
  3. BE YOURSELF! Life is too short to worry about what others think and the more we are true to ourselves, the quicker we can kill off subconscious bias. 

Dr Nisha Khot (@Nishaobgyn)

Dr Nisha Khot is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, educator and a passionate advocate for diversity. Dr Khot works across three organisations in metropolitan and regional Victoria and is a member of RANZCOG’s Council, Equity and Diversity Committee and Women’s Health Committee. Dr Khot was inspired to start a twitter account during the postal survey on Same Sex Marriage in Australia.

“ Just because we don’t understand it, doesn’t mean we should fear it – whether its refugees, Islam or anything. There must be something that unites us, so let’s find what we have in common and work from there!”

1. Why do you think it is important for doctors and medical professionals to engage with social media? 

For individual doctors, they have to decide if they want to be on social media as an individual or as a professional or as a combination of the two. 

For me, my social media role is about sticking to that core belief of mine that women of colour deserve a voice and deserve to be present at every table. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said ‘women should be everywhere where decisions are made’ and I would add that women of colour should be everywhere where decisions are made because women of colour belong there.  Everybody brings a slightly different perspective to issues from climate change to getting information about Covid-19, whatever the case may be – we all bring a different lens to it. Those who have traditionally been at the table have never even thought about these different perspectives.

Social media in itself is the table. On social media, we know women often face a barrage of abuse in various forms and if you happen to be a woman of colour, a woman of a different ethnic minority, a woman who identifies with a particular religion or if you belong to the LGBTQI community, you face even more abuse. I think social media is the table where we should all be present and we should all be true to our values. We need to make sure that we say the things we believe in so that other people have the courage to say those things as well.

2. Do you feel there are ‘unwritten’ rules around how doctors should look and behave on social media? What are the risks in breaking those rules and what are the benefits?

There are definitely unwritten rules BUT, they’re unwritten and the whole point of unwritten rules is to be able to challenge them and the only way to do that is to build a community. There are unwritten rules not just about social media, but about everything – when you start in a new hospital or a new unit, somebody who has been there for a few years will take you aside and say “this person prefers you to be here at 6 am,” and “that person will be really upset if you leave before 9 pm” — they’re all unwritten rules. The fact is that those rules NEED to be challenged – most of those rules were written at a time and by a group of people who don’t represent all of us. By building a community and challenging those rules and norms, we can move forward, whether that’s on social media or outside of social media.

There are risks in breaking the rules because not everyone will appreciate the breaking of those rules. Not every patient that looks at your social media profile will decide that you’re someone they want to see because they might not agree with what you are saying. That’s alright, there are enough patients to go around without having to feel you lose out on work. I don’t think we should not say the things we truly believe in because we fear our patients or our colleagues might not agree with us. We are mature adults and I think we do far too little disagreeing with each other and we should do a lot more disagreeing with each other — that’s the healthy thing to do!

3. Do you think doctors and medical professionals have a responsibility to be more vocal and engage with the broader community to actively combat medical misinformation? 

I think we do need to actively combat that. It’s a little bit more challenging in the social space because it’s such a big space and you don’t have the time to actively sit and give a rebuttal to each and everything that social media brings up. 

I think there is a space for doctors to educate and for people to then realise there is someone who does have the right experience, qualifications and knowledge to be able to give information rather than a celebrity chef. 

4. Have you had any opportunities open up by engaging with social media?

Yes, I definitely have! Opportunities aren’t always about career, sometimes it’s just about community and camaraderie. I did a thread of saris on twitter, and it was so lovely that there were people from across the world who joined in and although it didn’t do anything for anybody’s career, it helped all of us bond.

From a career point of view, I have had opportunities to collaborate with people in India, Australia and across the globe in various projects which has been something very satisfying and fulfilling and not something that would have happened if I had not been on twitter. 

There was a paper in the BMJ about Covid-19 and the risk of transmission in various locations. One of the authors posted the article on twitter and there was a nice table in that paper that did a traffic light system of the highest risk locations, which was worth sharing across the world. So, a whole host of people put their hands up to translate it in various languages. The table has been translated into 38 different languages just purely from people saying, “yes I know this language and I will do it!” I did the translation to Hindi. That is the sort of thing a community on twitter can do. It’s simple work with a simple message and gets embedded in so many different places – it makes you feel good that you have been a small part of a big project.

5. What did you wish you knew when you started engaging with social media?

I wish I knew the power and the reach it has. I had resisted for many, many years having anything to do with social media. I could have done so much more if I had known that so much is possible on it. Who knows? Maybe a whole lot of other opportunities would have come up!

I will be honest that I was worried that I would be doing something that wasn’t entirely right or that I would somehow break the rules. There was a fear of how it will be perceived but now that I’ve done it, I think there’s a lot of good to be gained from it – for myself and for the community as a whole.

6. What are your top 3 tips for doctors and medical students aspiring to start engaging with social media? 

  1.     Be genuine and authentic. Don’t pretend to be something you are not and if you don’t feel strongly about certain things – that’s okay! You don’t have to be a strong believer of every possible issue. Be honest enough to say, “actually, I don’t know about this.”
  2.   Stay true to your values – each of us has to decide what those values are. You don’t have to have a list of 20 values but choose your 3 values and stick to them.
  3. Take time away from social media. As much as it is wonderful, take time off and turn notifications off. Schedule 24 or 48 hours to take a break from social media and especially on holidays, choose a place where you don’t have access to the internet!

Dr Armando Faigl (YT: Armando Hasudungan)

Dr Armando Faigl is a basic physician trainee in NSW and a prominent medical educator on YouTube with over 1.5M subscribers. Dr Faigl creates comprehensive medical illustrations and video tutorials on a range of topics from basic anatomy to complex immunology. Dr Faigl’s social media journey started during his undergraduate Biomedicine Degree.

I think the world is changing, our generation especially, where social media plays a massive role in communicating and sharing - it is going to be the future.”

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1. Why do you think it is important for doctors and medical professionals to engage with social media? 

I think there is always a role for doctors to play on social media. I specifically post medical education and illustrations and I am all for encouraging other people to do it as well! In terms of advocating for public health issues, doctors definitely have a role. If I’m interested in a public health topic, then I definitely do it – I did videos on COVID recently because it’s such a big health topic.

2. Do you feel there are ‘unwritten’ rules around how doctors should look and behave on social media? What are the risks in breaking those rules and what are the benefits?

There is an unwritten rule that content needs to be credible and evidence based. The things doctors say online should have a back, and if it doesn’t, full disclosure is appropriate. Our role is to help people in health – we want to advocate good health and inform the public and so whatever we do, it has to be done for the good.

In regards to professionalism, at the end of the day, you are human and you can post what you want to on social media. If your social media account is for something specific, for example, my channel is based solely on illustration and medical education, then you should focus on that. On personal accounts, if a doctor wants to post themselves doing something they enjoy, let them do it!

3. Do you think doctors and medical professionals have a responsibility to be more vocal and engage with the broader community to actively combat medical misinformation? 

I think they definitely do. However, we also have to keep in mind that doctors also have different opinions, depending on where they are from and the regulations of their respective countries. For example, doctors in Europe and in Australia will approach things differently when posting about COVID and will have to strictly follow the health regulations of their state. Overall, I think it’s good - information coming from a doctor has more weight compared with information from someone without a public health or medical background.

4. Have you had any opportunities open up by engaging with social media?

I have been super lucky. I’ve had many opportunities working with medical organisations in Australia including CSIRO and Garvan Institute of Medical Research, who took me on board with projects during medical school. This was amazing and opened doors to create more contract work for organisations in Australia and around the world, including the Sydney Children’s Hospital.

It is really nice when people recognise your work and your presence and want to use your expertise in some way to do some good.

Through this channel, I was invited by Melbourne University to talk at their conference last year - that was cool, and I was so humbled and happy to talk there. 

Most of all though, I think it is amazing that my videos and social media accounts actually influence people globally – that’s the cherry on top and the best thing I could ask for.

5. What did you wish you knew when you started engaging with social media?

First and foremost, at the time I started, social media was not saturated, so I am very lucky I was one of the first ones to start medical education content on YouTube. If I had known that, I would have put more effort into creating more and better content earlier. 

Secondly, I think I would have gotten a social media manager and more professional people to get involved if I knew this was growing. I am still doing everything myself because this is my little baby.

I think I would have also taken a year off of medical school. To everyone who is a medical student - if at any stage you want to take a year off and do something you want to do, 100% do it, but don’t waste a year - know what you want to do and work on it. 

6. What are your top 3 tips for doctors and medical students aspiring to start engaging with social media? 

  1. If you are thinking of doing something social media related, try to look at something that has already been done and do it better or do it differently. 
  2. Learn to collaborate with people. Find a mentor - find someone out there who is already doing what you want to do and ask them to be your mentor. 
  3. Persistence is key - start off with one platform and establish a foundation before branching out. A good start is Instagram or Facebook if there are pictures involved!

 

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