Social Media and (Pre) Medical Education

I joined Facebook back in 2004, only months after the site was launched. The internet, though I didn’t realize it at a time, was still a very disconnected place. Social media was fundamentally in its infancy, with Facebook joining only a few other social networking sites (MySpace and Friendster come to mind). Twitter and many other social media sites were just thoughts at that stage. Aside from Facebook, the only way I connected with other people was through AOL Instant Messenger, if even that.

Eight years and some 900 million Facebook users later, social media has exploded onto the scene. Rare are the websites that DON’T have a share button that allows users to share the site with users on many different social media outlets. Early on, I used Facebook exclusively to keep in touch with close friends. In contrast, I created this blog to disseminate information. Soon after I started blogging, I discovered Twitter and the medical community that was burgeoning there. I then began to explore using social media for learning more about healthcare and medicine.

People are slowly recognizing the vast potential of social media, especially in the context of healthcare. Not only is it poised to be an important tool in clinical practice, but also in training new generations of physicians. There is a hashtag #meded for a Twitter conversation that takes place weekly, where participants discuss medical education, any problems observed, and potential solutions. It, along with the #hcsm (Healthcare Social Media) Twitter conversation, represents a great forum to propose innovative ways to improve the field of medicine and medical education. I think for students, especially, it is an incredible asset. One can get a very broad perspective of medical education in general, and can reach out to others who are encountering similar problems and situations on their way to a career in medicine.

Speaking for myself, I am pre-med. When I will shed the “pre” part is unknown at this time, but that’s an entirely different topic. I am working, but I am still thinking about entering medical school down the road. I love Twitter, and I use it in part to connect with doctors and students, and to keep abreast of issues that are going on in both the education side and the clinical practice side. I tend to lurk in the background for both the #meded and #hcsm conversations, observing and learning, but not directly participating. I have learned a great deal, but this is information that will probably come in handy further down the road, when I officially start on the road to becoming a physician. What would be nice right now is a similar community for pre-meds.

There is a somewhat more cohesive community that exists on the Internet to provide a resource for pre-meds, as well as medical students and practicing physicians and other healthcare professionals to pose questions and get answers: Student Doctor Network. This is something that has been around for years, and many students have embraced. I have used this multiple times and I think it’s fantastic. However, it is somewhat static, compared to Twitter at least. Yes, people post answers, but it’s not quite the same. Twitter has the feel of a conversation among friends. The rapid-fire exchange of questions and answers feels more natural, and more human in some ways.

Now of course there is a community of sorts on Twitter. There are many pre-meds who have taken to Twitter for one reason or another, and who sometimes connect with other pre-meds along the way. Yes, we all come together to bond, complain, rage, and sometimes exult about classes, the MCAT, and medical school applications. Yet it would be nice to have a way to discuss issues that plague pre-meds from freshman year to the post-graduate years. Ideally the conversation could be fostered and archived under a hashtag. The resulting posts/tweets can be accessed readily later.

There are so many questions that arise for pre-meds even before they reach college. Which school should I apply to? Should I opt for a combined BA/MD program, or go the “traditional” route? In college, the questions can range from the general (What should my GPA be? What about my MCAT? Where should I do community service? Which doctor should I shadow?) to the painfully specific (What the heck is a racemic mixture? How much acid-base chemistry can one expect on the MCAT? What is the average GPA of students accepted to medical school X?). Pre-med is a label that encompasses a wide range of students from at least the age of 17 or 18 to those who are often in their mid to late 20s, if not older (as is the case for many non-traditional students). A social media community dedicated to pre-med issues would be a wonderful way to not only allow these questions to be answered and grievances aired, but it represents a great opportunity for mentoring of younger students by older ones who have had more experience. Having pre-medical advisers, medical school admissions staff, and medical school professors potentially join these conversations would add much needed perspective about what lies on the other side of that seemingly impervious wall called medical school admission.

I’ve been talking about Twitter quite a bit, because that’s what I tend to use most of the time, but other social media tools can be used as well. Facebook’s potential as a teaching tool is being explored in the context of medical education. However, there are some who have reservations with regard to its use in this context, especially if educators are involved, as outlined in this great blog post by Anne Marie Cunningham of Cardiff University in the UK. Blogging, though considered antediluvian by some nowadays, represents another opportunity to detail experiences and forge bonds with others who are in similar situations, and get answers from those who have walked down the same path.

Think of how great it might have been for you to have a community right at your fingertips, where most (if not all) of your pre-med questions can be answered, and readily at that? It’s something that I definitely wished I had early on. While SDN has its benefits, at least on Twitter, there is a greater sense of openness and trust that enhances the learning experience in that context. I have communicated with students and doctors, and they have been wonderful sources of insight. I consider many of them to be friends and invaluable sources of information. It would be wonderful to see universities embrace social media as a powerful source of information and a teaching tool not only for pre-meds, but for all students. Social media participation should be encouraged, but it would be nice to see classes being offered to students that taught them about using social media wisely and managing their online reputation. Perhaps professors can get in on the act and provide information to their students on the social media groups, sites, and hashtags where conversations about topics that are being covered in their class. The possibilities are endless.

Thoughts? Comments?

Unsolicited and Unwarranted Emails: Privacy in the Internet Age

I am not the most tech-savvy individual in the world (most of my close friends know this all too well) but I know enough to know how to handle the Internet, especially when it comes to privacy. Rarely do I sign up for anything, and if I am forced to, I use one of several “junk” email addresses. I generally never use my personal email address or school email addresses. This is pretty standard practice nowadays.

Back in December, I woke up to a deluge of emails. A deluge of emails is not exactly unusual for many of us, and generally is never a problem for me. The problem was that these emails all had one thing in common: they were all from online education sites in response to supposed requests I made regarding a variety of academic programs and degrees. All the emails were directed to one of my school email addresses.

For those of you who don’t know, I have a bachelors and two masters degrees. Given the amount of student loan debt I have been tackling, if I was going to further my education, it would not be now but sometime in the future. It seems inconceivable that, if I were to consider going the online education route, I would use my school email address to request information. I also have anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware software installed.

Not only did I receive probably no less than 100 emails over the next month, but received calls on my cell phone from many, if not all of the institutions from whom I had received an email. Rather than passively mark them as spam, I decided to contact them. Only after responding to each and every call, and requesting each caller to take me off of their calling list, did I see a decrease in the communication I was receiving. Now I receive maybe one or two every few days, and all get automatically relegated to my spam folder.

I thought that was the end of it.

Boy was I wrong.

This morning, I woke up to another deluge of emails. No, these weren’t from online universities, but insurance companies. Each was emailing me in response to an auto insurance quote request that I supposedly made…again using my school email address. Apparently I am not alone. After Googling the issue, I found that many people have been similarly inundated with unsolicited emails from insurance companies. After a local agent contacted me in response to my supposed quote request, I sent him an email and got the following:

I went to NetQuote’s website. It’s a company that apparently sells insurance leads. Thanks to a nifty little extension called Web of Trust (WOT), got this warning as soon as I landed on their homepage:

Frankly, given their reputation, I was hesitant about emailing them, didn’t want that information somehow stored and used by their system. However, I called the 800 number and a very helpful representative did look into my situation. I wasn’t listed as a consumer, but the quote request ID did show up in their system. Someone did make a request using my information. The rep thought that it would have been because I filled out a survey or requested a gift card online, something that would require my email and other contact information (I’ve never done anything of the sort). They assured me that emails would be sent to the insurance agents to not contact me. While I’m glad that they did help me, something is still clearly not adding up. So I’m telling my story here, the only way I know to try to publicize the issue.

I feel violated and worried. As careful as I am, these things are still happening to me. Sure, insurance and online universities are not exactly dangerous entities in their own right. Yet if someone can use my private email and make my cell phone number readily available to entities with whom I have no connection, what else can they potentially do? I have checked all of the more important things (bank account, credit report, etc.) and there doesn’t seem to be anything amiss. Nonetheless, I want something to be done. This is a blatant invasion of privacy for personal gain, and they are really picking on the wrong person.

I know I am not alone, so I’m requesting anyone who has had similar problems or know anyone who has to share and retweet this post as much as possible. The Internet has ballooned into a vast and complicated entity. While that has provided innumerable benefits, the expansion has also driven the rise of people whose sole goal is to take advantage of others for the sake of making money or other purposes, many of them illicit.

If you have received similar emails, rather than ignore them or mark them as “spam”, dig deeper. Find out who gave out this information and contact them. If they don’t help, look up their profile on the Better Business Bureau or other similar regulatory agency’s database. File a complaint, describe your story, make sure your voice is heard. That is the only way they will learn that we will not stand by quietly and allow them to invade our lives and our privacy.