Fine social aspiration: Twitter as a voice for cytopathology

Abstract

Social media is an influential tool that has the power to transform cytopathology. Twitter is being used more and more to share cutting-edge updates from pathology meetings ("live-tweeting"). Modern smartphones can now take high resolution microscopic photographs and easily transmit them worldwide via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, allowing cytopathologists to share educational pearls and discuss difficult cases on a global scale like never before. Social media also allows cytopathologists to share a behind-the-scenes look at their subspecialty with other physicians and even the non-medical public, helping them to better understand the crucial importance of cytopathology in modern medicine. This could positively impact rapport with other specialties, influence policy making, and possibly even improve delivery of patient care. Rare disease patient communities are being formed by patients on Facebook. By joining and volunteering with these patient groups, cytopathologists would have further opportunity to interact directly with patients and their family members, explaining the role of cytopathology in patient care and helping patients to better understand their own diseases. Social media enables cytopathologists and their colleagues in other pathology subspecialties to easily and rapidly form a broad and diverse worldwide network with one another. The authors believe that this is the key to a bright future for our specialty, a strong unified global community of pathologists all working together for education, patient advocacy, and outstanding patient care. Social media can allow us to build that community, strengthen its bonds, and harness its power like never before in history. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2017;45:705-713. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Impact of Pathologist Involvement in Sarcoma and Rare Tumor Patient Support Groups on Facebook: A Survey of 542 Patients and Family Members

“…This pathologist has been involved in various Facebook support groups by interacting with patients and their families, explaining what pathologists do and pathology terminology, helping them navigate the cancer care system, answering general questions, and providing reliable information to educate these patients about their disease. 3,[5][6][7][8][9] Anecdotally, the patients reported that they enjoy having this pathologist in their groups and find the pathologist's posts and comments helpful. In this study, we aimed to more formally assess patients' perceptions of pathologist involvement in their Facebook support groups.…”

Social cytopathology: Building a stronger cytopathology community through social media

“…With any new and emerging technology, early adopters risk judgment. However, social media have already had significant uptake in the cytopathology community, including journals such as Cancer Cytopathology and Diagnostic Cytopathology , societies such as the American Society of Cytopathology (ASC) and the Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology, the Milan reporting system, the current ASC president, the current editor‐in‐chief of Cancer Cytopathology , and many others . Do's and don'ts for sharing cytopathology on social media are highlighted in Table .…”

“…Live tweeting is an excellent way to be in 2 places at once, both for those at the meeting so that they can see what is being presented in concurrent sessions and for those unable to attend the meeting so that they can also benefit from the information shared. For example, Twitter activity from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology annual meeting increased from 1746 tweets at the 2015 meeting to 6524 tweets at the 2016 meeting, and the 2016 ASC annual meeting had approximately 4000 tweets . The real‐time nature of social media also allows discussion of novel findings or guidelines with both those at the meeting and those covering service back at home.…”

Social Media Use for Pathologists of All Ages

“…2 Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms provide numerous potential benefits to the global pathology community. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Despite this growing popularity and acceptance, some pathologists are still reticent to use social media professionally. 22,23 One of the authors (J.M.G.)…”