One area the BCEM Network has struggled is with, well, networking. A quick scroll through the member discussion feed shows few posts, most with few responses. I'm guilty of this, largely because I've gone to Twitter for rich engagement with a worldwide community of medical practitioners. Like most, I've been super leery of anything social media related, where anything from anonymous public shaming to inciting a riot can happen. Over the past several months, I've joined and grown to love #MedTwitter - a particular way of using Twitter for professional development and networking with like minded clinicians. What the BC EM Network is all about.

 

For those unfamiliar with Twitter, know first that it's just a communication platform, a tool, and like any tool, needs to be used correctly. Creating a purely professional account with good "Twitter hygiene" can ensure that it remains worthwhile. What Twitter feeds to you depends on your behaviour - who you follow, what you like, what content you click on. The algorithm thrives on keeping you engaged and it will always throw trial balloons on your feed to see what you ignore or not, all the while learning what makes you angry or sad - and then sending you more of that. If these click-bait teases are ignored, you'll get more of the content you want - rich discussions with emergency medicine leaders, researchers and policy makers from BC and across the country.

 

It does help to define ahead of time what it is you are most interested in professionally, then go into Twitter with those interests first and foremost guiding your behaviour. For me, it's POCUS, rural medicine, emergency and crit care and BC health policy. And that's it. No posts of family, friends, holiday photos, cats, news articles - nothing. In other words, I am a rural BC doctor on Twitter and nothing else. Posts relate to my professional interests. Patients are blocked. I post interesting ultrasound clips for learning and teaching. The people and topics I follow are only those related to my professional interests. This is MedTwitter.

 

Individuals or organizations with accounts are indicated by "@" followed by the name. So the BC Emergency Network is @BCEmergMedNtwrk. Dr Julian Marsden is @drmarsbar. I'm @TracyMorton. You can choose whatever name you'd like.  And topics: topics are marked with a "#" followed by the topic. This is known as a hashtag. So point-of care ultrasound is #POCUS. MedTwitter is #Medtwitter. There are gazillions of topics, all signified by the #. You can deep dive into any topic just by knowing the hashtag.

 

So follow your peers. Follow FOAM leaders like Scott Weingart (@emcrit), Chris Hicks (@humanfact0rz), Anton Helman (@EMcases), Amal Mattu, Salim Rezaie and Haney Mallemat. Follow ultrasound wizards like Dan Kim, Katie Wiskar, Paul Olszynski, Robert Jones, Ben Smith and Jacob Avila. And follow people who they follow.

 

Soon you'll be getting just the ED/POCUS/crit care content you want, and not the crap you don't.