Harnessing the power of social media to support medical training during COVID-19

Johnathan Hirniak; Daniel Huddart; Rajiv Sethi; Connor Dibblin; Gursharun Hayer; Biyyam M Rao; Cameron Jenkins; Benjamin Hueso; Mohammed E Zaman; Sunil Sethi

doi:10.7861/fhj.2020-0027

Harnessing the power of social media to support medical training during COVID-19

Future Healthc J. 2020 Oct;7(3):e45-e46. doi: 10.7861/fhj.2020-0027.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ St George's, University of London, London, UK.
² Imperial College London, London, UK.
³ NHS England and NHS Improvement, UK.
⁴ King's College London, London, UK.
⁵ University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
⁶ University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
⁷ Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, UK.
⁸ @BecomingaDr, UK.

Abstract

Twitter offers a powerful means to share information, suggest ways to help and highlight useful initiatives during the global COVID-19 pandemic. We describe one successful Twitter campaign focusing on the role of medical students (#MedStudentCovid), led by the volunteer organisation Becoming A Doctor with support from leaders at the General Medical Council, Health Education England, NHS England and the World Health Organization.

Keywords: Medical students; collaboration; digital health; innovation; social media.