Medical scientific conferences and social networks

Abstract

Introduction. Medical conferences are a key source of new and relevant knowledge for practicing physicians. Physicians use social media to share this knowledge with their colleagues. As a result, there is a lot of discussion on social media about the topics covered in the scientific presentations. This initiative has some educational value, which is being actively explored. The discussions around such posts make ideas, insights, opinions and experiences of peer-colleagues easily available. They also immediately raise awareness of new clinical research and scientific data.Objective. We studied how often Russian physicians use available social networks (vrachirf.ru, doktornarabote.ru. vk.com) to share information from scientific conferences with their colleagues.Materials and мethods. We searched for posts using keywords related to medical conferences and selected among the search results the entries whose authors, as physicians, disclosed selected elements of the content of scientific presentations.Results. We identified 65 entries over the past 4–12 months where physicians shared facts and ideas presented at scientific conferences. Entries posted on professional physicians’ social networks with access restricted to lay public generated vigorous meaningful discussions, unlike posts on the mainstream social network vk.com.Conclusions. Doctors very rarely share on social media the facts and ideas presented at Russian scientific medical conferences. Physicians demonstrate significant interest in these posts and actively discuss them. Further study should reveal the educational potential of the described phenomenon and suggest the pathways to its effective utilization.