I have had some notable mentors that instilled the importance of networking early in my career. LinkedIn made sense but was not frequented by as many scientists and doctors as I expected. ResearchGate caters more towards scientists by allowing users to follow someone’s ongoing work and publications. At first I didn’t see the utility of Twitter until I realized that by following leaders in my field I could cultivate up to date scientific information and not miss a landmark study. At conferences, twitter enabled me to gather key points from talks I couldn’t attend or participate in live tweet-ups covering a topic and questions for the general public. By engaging more in the science social media realm I made connections and collaborations in real life, found an outlet for my outreach goals, and have kept up more with a greater proportion of new research.

One of my mentors, Ed Mariano, crafted an eloquent article, “Why  doctors  should be on twitter” and a companion power-point on the topic shared on Slide Share: “Time for physicians to get social” posted on November 18, 2015.

Similarly, Ned Potter at University of York Library created a power-point “Twitter for Researchers” on June 13, 2014.  Some of the benefits of twitter that I mentioned above were quoted in this presentation.

Besides the outreach through social media I have found via Twitter, below is a sample of some the live tweeting that I participated in at the past two American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine conferences, as part of the social media team. I was just invited to be on the social media team for the upcoming American Pain Society conference, as well.

Fall Pain Meeting 2015 #ASRAPain15

 

 

 

Spring Regional Anesthesia & Acute Pain Meeting 2016 #ASRA_RA16