Social media: oportunități de manifestare și dezvoltare profesională pentru medici

CONTEXT. Social Media (SM) provides multiple/various oportunities forphysicians, including: health promotion through public messaging, professionaldevelopment through access to webinars and other training resources, andpromotion of personal profile and the institution they represent.METHODS. A total of 988 physicians from the Republic of Moldova weresurveyed by adapting the questionnaire developed by EHRA (E-CommunicationCommittee and the EHRA Scientific Initiatives Committee). Methods: historical,sociological and statistical.RESULTS. The level of SM use by physicians for professional purposesshows specificities depending on living environment, geographical area, age,gender and field of activity. Physicians aged 36-45 are most aware of theeffectiveness of SM for health communication (92.5%). Only 34.2% of allphysicians reported using SM to distribute information to patients or the generalpublic. SM networks are primarily used to follow new scientific publications,attend lectures/webinars and scientific events.Less appreciated are the promotion of personal image (17.9%) and effectivecommunication with patients/general public (19.0%). Although representing arather small share (9.6%), those who do not use SM at all claim lack of time, lackof skills, lack of interest in the online environment and sometimes lack oftechnical means. The main advantages in using SM are: availability and easyaccess to professional materials and information, access to some information thatcannot be obtained through live contact, and avoidance of the financial expensesinherent in traditional training and meetings.CONCLUSIONS. Although most physicians consider social media to be aneffective channel of communication in healthcare, the number of those activelyusing this tool in their professional practice is quite low. At the same time, there isa lack of awareness of the benefits of SM as an effective communication channelwith patients or the general public, which highlights the need for training on theuse of social media as a personal and institutional promotional tool.