Last week the Society of General Internal Medicine (@SocietyGIM) hosted it’s first “live twitter chat”. No surprise, Dr. Joel Boggan (@JoelBoggan), a Duke GIM internist, checked in. Boggan is a former Duke Chief Resident and that’s when he started using Twitter. Currently he’s a hospitalist at the Durham VA where his forte is quality and safety, both analysis and innovations for improvement.
The recent one-hour tweet-up was part of the SGIM #ProudtobeGIM campaign aimed at encouraging medical students and residents to pursue GIM. To make this happen, the meeting time was pre-determined and announced by SGIM via Twitter, the topic defined, and moderated by three internists from the SGIM ProudtobeGIM Workgroup.
The questions addressed general medicine careers:
Q1: How did you choose general internal medicine? Was someone helpful in your decision?
Q2: What unique career opportunities fall under the umbrella of GIM?
Q3: Describe a typical day in the life of a general internist.
Q4: Is a fellowship needed in GIM? Did you do a fellowship and why or why not?
Q5: What advice would you give someone considering a career in GIM?
To read the replies (A1-A5), SGIM will post an archive of the chat. Dr. Boggan’s reply to the last question was “A5 – the diversity in possible careers and interests is unmatched.”
"The diversity in possible careers and interests is unmatched."
We asked Dr. Patrick Hemming, a primary care internist in the Duke Outpatient Clinic, to tell us his reason to pursue a career in general internal medicine and here’s his reply, not exactly 140 characters, the constraint of a tweet, but inspiring for sure:
"I feel like I get to do my job, which is very different than how many people I know describe working. General Internal Medicine is a field where I can help patients with a large array of different health concerns. I have the privilege to work at Duke, because of the institutional support for education. Because of Duke's interest in supporting primary care for populations with high needs, I get to help patients who are truly in need. At our best, we are the glue holding together our patients' healthcare team."
On the other hand these little bursts of online networking in a “live chat” are especially easy to follow and it’s fun being a participant.
There’s more about social media for health professionals at Duke coming soon. Plan to attend this Interest Group sponsored by Duke Ahead.
March 2, 4-5 pm
Classroom 4, Trent Semans Center
The leader is Duke Nephrologist, Dr. Matt Sparks (@Nephro_Sparks)
PS: did you see our Twibbon? We joined others by adding an overlay to our twitter account @Duke_GIM which now displays “I am ProudtobeGIM”, increasing awareness of our passion for general internal medicine. Learn more at Twibbon.com
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For a Twitter quick-start:
Read our 6-part DGIM Twitter series here
Or, dive right to the core with this DGIM blog post about Twitter: “Where’s the beef?”