Professional Experience Placement

Chapman and Freeman (2015) analysed Australian Twitter data to discover the most-followed Twitter accounts in health and medicine. The authors were prompted to explore this form of social media because they were interested in understanding how Twitter users use the platform for dissemination of information, advocacy, networking and debate. Chapman and Freeman (2015) ranks the top 10 Twitter accounts by number of followers in four categories: individuals tweeting about multiple health issues; individuals tweeting about a single focus area; health agencies and politicians and journalists, presenters and publications tweeting about health and healthcare. The authors describe their methodology which included crowdsourcing for suggestions and trawling health and medical lists and developed an inclusion/exclusion criteria. They contacted each person on the individual list and incited them to nominate an example of a tweet that had impact through retweeting or becoming a favourite.   The article lists the 10 top tweeters and provides an analysis of their Twitter account, including the qualitative information from each account holder.

The implications of these findings for clinical supervisors is the opportunity for informal learning by receiving information about health from these account holders. These accounts will provide opportunities to find other people or accounts that provide information that could be of interest as well, thereby you can receive information tailored to your interests.

If you are interested  in joining Twitter, but unsure how or where to start try this Twitter guide developed by Paul McNamara.

If you would like to know what is happening in the conversation, the recent release of the Sensis Social media report (2016) provides an overview of who, what, when, where and how Australians are using social media to connect. It offers an insight into the power of social media and the possibilities for informal learning in your areas of interest, which you can then use for your mandatory continuing professional development to maintain your annual registration

If you have any comments about using social media for informal learning you are welcome to post them here. Please join us @PEPCommunity.