Seminars in hematology
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Seminars in hematology · Oct 2017
ReviewThe use and impact of Twitter at medical conferences: Best practices and Twitter etiquette.
The use of social media, and in particular, Twitter, for professional use among healthcare providers is rapidly increasing across the world. One medical subspecialty that is leading the integration of this new platform for communication into daily practice and for information dissemination to the general public is the field of hematology/oncology. ⋯ Hematologists/oncologists are engaging regularly in one of the most common forms of social media, Twitter, during major medical conferences, for purposes of debate, discussion, and real-time evaluation of the data being presented. As interest has grown in this area, this article aims to review the new norms, practices, and impact of using Twitter at the time of medical conferences, and also explores some of the barriers and pitfalls that users are encountering in this emerging field.
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Seminars in hematology · Oct 2017
ReviewDisease-specific hashtags and the creation of Twitter medical communities in hematology and oncology.
Twitter is being increasingly used for information gathering and dissemination of ideas in both medical practice and scientific research. A major limitation to its use has been the surplus of available information and difficulty in categorizing that information into topics of individual interest. ⋯ As new disease-specific hashtags are created for hematologic and oncologic diseases, more users can connect across the world, even for the rarest of cancer subtypes. A major challenge for this emerging application will be the development of specific and easily identifiable hashtags over time to add more clarity, while still trying to grow Twitter users and expand its reach.