Social Media Highlights

Nearly three years ago SOCCA dove into #SoMe with its twitter account @SOCCA_CritCare, and since that time has covered 3 SOCCA conferences, 2 ASA meetings, and shared #CriticalCare content with over 800 followers. We had our most engaging twitter exchange yet during May’s annual meeting (#SOCCA19) and the aligned meeting days with the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) and the Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA). In fact, on the #SOCCA19 meeting day alone we had over 11,000 Twitter impressions (views of our posts) and 28,800 impressions during the conference week! Through twitter we were able to share content and commentary with members and followers throughout the world (and also within the meeting rooms!). We are grateful for the high level of #SoMe engagement during the meeting, as well as the excellent presentations which generated academic discussion and insightful commentary! The twitter posts by members, online followers, and our organization served as a platform for information sharing during the meeting and also created a permanent, accessible summary of the highlights of the conference! To easily find all twitter posts related to the conference, simply search the hashtag #SOCCA19 on twitter.

At #SOCCA19, we even had a panel dedicated to #SoMe in medicine, aptly titled “Doctoring and Social Media” which was superbly moderated in pro-con fashion by Sheela Pai Cole (@SheelaPaiCole). Panelist Dr. Vivek Moitra (@vmoitra) took the side “Tweet Critical Care: I Cannot Do Without It” while panelist Dr. Veena Satyapriya (@MdVeena) countered with “I Think It's a Distraction: Several Reasons to Thrive Without It.” During the talk, which sparked enthusiastic discussion, the benefits of #SoMe such as the ability to broadly share information, access free medical education (#FOAMed) and connect with peers was balanced against the time burden being active on #SoMe entails and losses of privacy. (This author will not disclose his side of the debate!).

This spring we also launched three additional twitter hashtags (#SOCCATrainees, #SOCCADiversity, and #SOCCAResearch), to coincide with the #SOCCA19 meeting. The topics are meant to emphasize some of the most important pillars of our society. We encourage members to utilize #SOCCATrainees to share the activities of fellows, residents, and students who are aspiring intensivists, #SOCCADiversity to highlight diversity within our society, and #SOCCAResearch as a platform to promote the academic nature of our organization and to share your research. We invite all members who are involved in publications or presentations to reach out to us with their work, either by direct message on twitter or email, and we will broadcast it from our organizational account. When doing so, please also include a photo, figure, or a sentence about your work. Also, feel free to tag us (by adding @SOCCA_CritCare into your tweet) when discussing any critical care topic, sharing an interesting image or vignette from the ICU (HIPPA compliant of course!), or even simply posting a photo of yourself (especially with other members).

Now, back to tweeting!

Author

Michael Fierro, MD

Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology

Medical College of Wisconsin

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

@SOCCA_CritCare