Originally posted By allison burnett on January 17, 2019
Mobile devices and social media platforms are transforming how medical students access educational resources, and collaborate with peers as students and practitioners, and conduct their work. The medical education space and the profession as a whole are both trying to keep up with the rapid pace of change and absorb the impacts this wave of change is bringing.
Medical Students:
Medical students, I am sure like students in most other educational areas, no longer rely on heavy printed text books for their materials, as noted in an article in the National Post (Lavelle, C., 2018).
“The textbooks can no longer keep up with the information cycle or the technology cycle,” says Dr. Sara Gray, an emergency and critical care specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital and associate professor at the University of Toronto. “The answer that was right two years ago is no longer necessarily the right answer today, and that rate of change makes it very hard for everybody to agree on how exactly we should be practicing at any given moment.”
Instead, they are turning to various social and open media channels to gather and share knowledge, often done through hashtags that are commonly known in the profession, such as #FOAMed (FOAM being an acronym for Free and Open Access Meducation) and #MedEd. Although the industry has not abandoned trade journals and publications or conference, the use of platforms like Twitter, blogs, or podcasts for medical information is on the rise. This of course also has implications throughout the education lifecycle all the way to summative assessments, as content developers strive to ensure that their assessments remain relevant and meaningful in terms of measuring learning outcomes.
Medical Practitioners:
Similar to medical students, full-fledged practitioners in the field are also turning to mobile social platforms to collaborate in innovative ways with other physicians. The camera on the mobile device has made particular in-roads into doctors’ offices and even surgery rooms. Tom Blackwell highlighted some of the risks arising from doctors taking even non-identifying photos of patients in his National Post article back in 2016. Blackwell highlighted even if users consent to their photos being taken, they often don’t understand necessarily that the photos are on a personal device, mixed in with photos of family or vacations! To respond to the concern that patient photos had no real ‘home’ on the device, the Figure 1 app was borne. This app, known as the “Instragram for doctors“, allows doctors to share photos with other medical practitioners and crowd-source advice and expertise of other professionals in a closed and controlled environment (Senthilingam, 2015). Doctors using this tool indicate that Figure 1 has helped them make more accurate diagnosis, and validate assumptions and their own approach to manage it, all in an expedited timeline (Popper, 2015).
Summary:
The two above examples merely scratch the surface on how the medical education landscape is changing. The mobile phone has influenced how knowledge is acquired, recalled, and shared. More specifically, the device has changed how studying and practicing physicians source knowledge, solve problems, and interact with patients. Has education embraced the phone as an integral part of a medical practitioner’s role?
Sources:
Blackwell, T. (Apr 17, 2016). “Saving lives or risky pics? ‘Revolution’ in MDs’ smartphone photos raises ethical concerns”. NationalPost.com website. Retrieved from: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/saving-lives-or-risky-business-revolution-in-mds-smartphone-photos-raises-privacy-ethical-concerns
Lavelle, C. (Mar 29, 2018). “What’s your doctor reading? How social media is disrupting medical education”. NationalPost.com website. Retrieved from: https://nationalpost.com/health/whats-your-doctor-reading-how-social-media-is-disrupting-medical-education
Popper, B. (Apr 6. 2015). “I’m addicted to the gruesome and beautiful photographs on Figure 1, an Instagram for doctors”. TheVerge.com website. Retrieved from: https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/6/8341217/figure-1-medical-images-sharing-app
Senthilingam, M. (Feb 10. 2015). “‘Instagram for doctors’ lets medics share photos to solve mystery cases”. CNN.com website. Retrieved from: https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/10/tech/figure1-photos-medical-app/index.html
The original post mentions Figure 1 as an example of how the mobile device has changed the medical education landscape. In 2016, I was working at Women’s College Hospital (WCH), in the communications department. WCH was the first Canadian hospital to join Figure 1 (https://www.womenscollegehospital.ca/news-and-publications/press-releases/2016/wch-figure-1-global-health-education-network) and I remember the excitement among physicians, nurses and the medical community.
Four years later, I was curious to see how Figure 1 has evolved. They’ve since launched a podcast series called DDx (https://www.figure1.com/ddx-season2). It’s now in its second season, covering a wide range of cases with challenging diagnoses. I think it’s a clever way of information sharing, that’s a contrast to Figure 1’s flagship visual app. With the pandemic, the app also has a dedicated COVID-19 clinical library. I think the timely approaches that Figure 1 has taken, has pushed it to become a #MedEd resource beyond just an “instagram for doctors”.