In our January episode, #thisisourlane, we spoke with Dr. Garen Wintemute about firearm violence, and discussed the immediate and passionate social media outpouring from physicians in response to an NRA tweet. In this episode, we dive deeper into the topic of physician advocacy, and, more specifically, the role of social media in advocacy. Our guest, Dr. Megan Ranney, is an emergency medicine physician, educator, and digital health and public health researcher, and is an avid social media user herself. She discusses the power of social media to affect change, and offers some tips for how to make your voice heard, and how to navigate some of the pitfalls. Listen through to the end for thoughts from some other well known EM physicians, including Drs. Mike Gisondi, Steve Bird, and Nikita Joshi.

How do you use social media? What do you think about health care professionals using social media for advocacy? Tell us how you’re getting involved – or why you’re staying away! Find us on social media as @empulsepodcast, or on our website, ucdavisem.com. 

Please subscribe and rate us on iTunes – it helps us reach more people! 

Hosts:

Dr. Julia Magaña, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at UC Davis

Dr. Sarah Medeiros, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at UC Davis

Guest:

Dr. Megan Ranney, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Brown University, Chief Research Officer at AFFIRM Research

Featuring:

Dr. Harrison Alter, Research Director for the Highland Department of Emergency Medicine and Founder and Executive Director of the Levitt Center 

Dr. Mike Gisondi, Vice Chair of Education for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University

Dr. Vishnu Parthasarathy, Emergency Medicine Resident at UC San Diego

Dr. Steve Bird, President of SAEM, Vice Chair of Education at UMass Medical School

Dr. Linda Herman, Emergency Medicine Residency Program Director at Kaweah Delta

Dr. Nikita Joshi, Emergency Medicine Faculty at Alameda Health System

Resources:

AFFIRM Research

Mayo Clinic 12 Word Social Media Policy

Cyberbullying in Academic Medicine: A Framework for Managing Social Media Attacks.

Cain J, Linos E, Chretien KC. Acad Med. 2019 Mar 26. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000002649. [Epub ahead of print]

Twitter as a tool for communication and knowledge exchange in academic medicine: A guide for skeptics and novices.

Choo EK, Ranney ML, Chan TM, Trueger NS, Walsh AE, Tegtmeyer K, McNamara SO, Choi RY, Carroll CL. Med Teach. 2015 May;37(5):411-6. doi: 10.3109/0142159X.2014.993371. Epub 2014 Dec 19.

It’s Time for More Physicians to Embrace Advocacy, a Scientific American blog post by Dr. Angira Patel, March 13, 2018.

ACEP Firearm Safety and Injury Prevention Policy Statement

What You Can Do

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Thank you to the UC Davis Department of Emergency Medicine for supporting this podcast and to Orlando Magaña at OM Audio Productions for audio production services.