Hey everyone,
So in class this week the subject was microblogging, AKA twitter. One of the first things our professor asked was our exposure with twitter and our thoughts about its usefulness. I was first to say that I thought it was not useful and I would never have even opened a twitter account if it wasn't part of my grade in that class. As the lecture went on, the professor was eager to show me how wrong I was. By the end of the lecture, and with a little research of my own, my quick response has changed. I do see the benefits of twitter in the health care industry. It is the quickest way to get information out to such a large population or funds to support a natural disaster fund. The key, I'm seeing, is the people you choose to follow. See I heard about twitter when it first came out from the celebrities on tv...."follow me on twitter to know what I'm wearing, or see who my latest crush is"...and so on and so forth. Thus I always associated twitter as a useless site solely devoted to the minute by minute thoughts of people who don't matter. However, twitter is and can be used for much more than that. There was an article mentioned in class, that I posted below, about how surgeons are now tweeting play by play of operations so that colleagues and students can learn from live surgical procedures. Twitter can also be used when a physician can not figure out a diagnosis or a proper treatment plan. The doctor can tweet the patient case and get help from other physicians who may be more experienced. Of course there are negatives that come from using twitter like this, wrong diagnosis, drug dose, sensitive information leakage, the list could go on and on. I guess my point is that there is a use for twitter in the health care industry, however I still can't see myself taking part of it once this course is over...
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-17/tech/twitter.surgery_1_twitter-and-facebook-social-networking-site-twitter-tweeted?_s=PM:TECH
I agree with you. Twitter did and still does seem like something I would not keep up with, as my life is so busy with other things. Although being in the professional field and soon to be out of school, who knows what we will be interested in. For all we know we could be blogging everyday and tweeting other pharmacist for help on pharmacy procedures or recommendations for patients. We should keep an open mind on what the future hold, for we may never know where our minds will lead us!
ReplyDeleteI had the exact same sentiment about twitter when this class started. I thought it was just a way to "stalk" celebrities and know what people were doing at all times of the day. However, as the semester went on, I discovered how social media sites can be used in a more professional way. While i don't see myself posting on twitter anytime soon, I have opened my eyes to something new that can be used to follow people in the field of pharmacy and keep up to date and learn new things!
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