ABSTRACT
Background/Case Studies: Twitter Social Media has grown in traction as a freely available worldwide platform for the real-time rapid dissemination of medical knowledge, a means of fostering engagement and building communities of practice. Twitter Space is a new live audio platform on Twitter. Like tweets, spaces are public and can be accessed by anyone, thus serving as another way to break traditional boundaries of accessing knowledge. In January 2022, Transfusion News developed a program on Twitter Space called #Blooducation Baristas with the goal of providing a venue for a small panel of experts to discuss an interesting and current topic. Here we share our early experiences using this innovative tool to advance transfusion medicine education. Study Design/Methods: Episodes are scheduled every eight weeks and are 30-min discussions using a questionand- answer format on a burgeoning transfusion medicine topic. Once the topic is designated, an investigation on the leading experts is considered and invited to partake in a panel discussion. Of those who do not have a Twitter account, detailed instructions are provided as well as virtual tutorials on navigating the platform. Once confirmed, a set of preformed questions are provided to the expert panelists. The episodes are advertised through the Transfusion News website, emails and Twitter posts from the moderators and speakers one to two weeks in advance of the sessions. Using email analytics, Tweepsmap and Twitter Analytics, engagement was captured on the following items: number of Twitter Space listeners, number of Tweet impressions, number of new Twitter followers, geographic location of Twitter engagement, and number of new email subscribers. Results/Findings: Over a three-month period, two #Blooducation Barista episodes have been aired on Twitter Space. The first episode took place on January 28, 2022 and covered the topic of COVID-19 convalescent plasma in the Omicron era. The second episode took place on March 25, 2022 and covered the topic of Paid Platelet Donors. Over three months, over 200 listeners attended the sessions from over three countries. The second episode generated three new email subscribers across three including United States, Canada and Qatar. Feedback from panelists included that the experience was "fun and easy" and well as a great opportunity to interact with other experts and discuss different points of view. Conclusion(s): The use of different tools offered by social media is a suitable and efficient strategy to bring experts together and reach out to a broad, international, and diverse audience about relevant and current topics. Additionally it provides another avenue for interactive engagement and reaching new subscribers by using a different platform to attract learners.
ABSTRACT
Introduction/Objective: PathElective.com was founded as a means of combating stagnating resident and medical student education due to halting of in-person educational activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The site has since grown to be included in medical student and resident training programs at numerous institutions across the world, serving as a unique means of delivering highquality and trackable laboratory medicine education. Methods/Case Report: The PathElective website was developed using Squarespace, video lectures were recorded by each professor or sourced from openly available web resources incorporating virtual slides, reading assignments, or relevant podcasts at the course director's discretion. Monthly website traffic data were obtained through Squarespace analytics for the first 11 months of the website being available (May 1, 2020, to April 22, 2021). Geographic and source data were obtained through deidentified IP address analysis built-in to Squarespace analytics. Students who registered to take the online courses were assessed before and after interacting with the course materials using a dual form crossover quiz design to prevent memorization of questions and assess comprehension. Quiz data were all anonymous and improvement was determined using a paired t-test. Comparisons between courses were made via percentage improvements. Results (if a Case Study enter NA): Over the tracking period, PathElective.com received 352,012 page views, 73,550 visits, 33,225 unique visitors, and accrued 5,815 registered users. Most of the visitors (72.8%) arrived at the site via a direct URL input, 14.9% through a search engine, and 10.6% through social media. Most visitors were from the US (43.8%) or India (11.9%). With a total of 1598 test pairs being analyzed from all clinical pathology modules, the average increase in score was 14.4% (95%, CI=10.3- 18.6, p=0.0052). All courses experienced a statistically significant increase in scores except for Clinical Chemistry lesson 3.2 (7%, -1.8-15.9% CI, p=0.12). Courses were well received with a median satisfaction score was very satisfied in all six assessment categories. Conclusion: PathElective.com is a free and effective means of enhancing clinical pathology training in medical education. Students liked the online format, the quality of the lectures, and course faculty, and felt they could get help if needed. An area of improvement for this platform would be the interaction with students on social media.