Professional Experience Placement

Richardson et al (2016) explored the concept of sustainability in nursing using Twitter as the vehicle for discussion. The authors undertook a thematic analysis of the discussion to understand how using social media engaged participants about the topic.  This article focused on sustainability and the findings indicated that social media is an effective method for nurses and students who are geographically dispersed. Furthermore, the authors indicated that findings from the Twitter discussion could be used to develop policy in healthcare environments.

There implications for using social media platforms to engage nurses in discussions about topics of relevance. It has the potential to enable equitable participation between students, educators and practitioners. The authors report that sustainability was a topic of interest to nurses and participants responded to threads, questions and comments in real-time. This form of synchronous discussion also enables ‘lurkers’ to observe and be exposed to the content.  Thinking more broadly the opportunities for discussion are only limited by our own boundaries. Asynchronous or real-time Twitter chats can be used for continuing professional development. The @PEPCommunity Twitter handle and #PEPCommunity have the potential to be utilised more fully by clinical supervisors or anyone interested in work integrated learning topics. Twitter chats have an immediacy that asynchronous Twitter conversations do not. While the information in the article focused on sustainability, it is useful to have evidence about the performance of Twitter as a communication and educational tool.  If you have any comments about using Twitter for engaging healthcare professionals about clinical supervision, you are welcome to post them here.  Please join us @PEPCommunity.