Physicians on Twitter
- Katherine C. Chretien, MD katherine.chretien@va.govMedical ServiceWashington DC VA Medical CenterWashington, DC;
- Justin Azar, BSGeorge Washington University School of Medicine and Health SciencesWashington, DC;
- Terry Kind, MD, MPHDepartment of Medical EducationChildren's National Medical CenterWashington, DC
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA
- CONFLICT OF INTEREST
- ETHICS, MEDICAL
- HEALTH EDUCATION
- INTERNET
- PHYSICIANS
- PRIVACY
- PROFESSIONAL ROLE
To the Editor: The existence of social media is transforming the way physicians communicate with the public, bringing both challenges and opportunities for medical professionalism.1,2 Indeed, the American Medical Association recently issued a policy statement on professionalism in the use of social media.3 Medical schools are adopting social media policies.4
Twitter, a free social networking and microblogging site, has shown its strength to broadcast information, even in times of social upheaval.5 Yet information on Twitter is not verified, and it may be impossible to authenticate sources.5 Twitter users post 140-character-maximum messages called tweets to their followers. Tweets are digitally archived by the Library of Congress. Through a process termed retweeting, whereby users can rebroadcast another user's tweet with a click or two, tweets can spread rapidly across an exponentially growing community of more than 190 million users worldwide.6
We set out …
