BJD Talks
The official podcast of the British Journal of Dermatology
BJD Talks
Episode 3: Social Media In Dermatology Research
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Social media is pervasive in modern life, and academia is no exception. It must be asked - where does the dermatology community stand on our #SoMe society? What practical advantages does social media hold for dissemination of dermatology research? In a universe that can be murky and mysterious, how does the jobbing researcher navigate the risks? And what responsibilities do our institutions hold? Dr Jonny Guckian speaks to BJD Multimedia Section Editor, Dr Nour Kibbi and Social Media Associate Editor, Dr Chantal Cotter to answer some of these important questions.
Hi there and welcome to BJD Talks, the official podcast of the British Journal of Dermatology. In this podcast, we aim to look beyond our published studies and explore the real-world implications of dermatology scholarship in a relaxed, accessible way. So, whether you're a dermatology professor, registrar, researcher, patient, or simply a skin enthusiast, we hope you'll join us as we build on our world-leading research through friendly discussion. My name is Dr. Johnny Gokin, and I'm a dermatology registrar in West Yorkshire. As well, I'm the BGAD's Podcast Associate Editor. I'll be your host as we dive into issues as wide-ranging as climate dermatology, patient and public involvement in research, and artificial intelligence. Social media is at the heart of modern society. But what is the role of social media in the dermatology research world? How can authors take advantage of the opportunities that platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit provide, whilst avoiding some of the risks to professionalism that we always seem to hear about? And in an age of greater information and disinformation, who is responsible for informing our patients and professionals about evidence-based dermatology? To answer these questions and more, I'm joined by two exciting guests. I'm delighted to first of all introduce Dr. Noor Kibby, dermatologist and clinical assistant professor in dermatology at Stanford, as well as multimedia editor at the BJD. Hi Noor.
SPEAKER_02Hi Johnny, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00No problem. I'd also like to welcome Dr. Chantal Cotter, dermatology fellow at Boston Children's Hospital and Social Media Associate Editor at the BJD. Hi Chantal.
SPEAKER_01Hi Johnny, thanks for having us today.
SPEAKER_00Now, if our listeners start to think that this chat is getting a wee bit cozy, they should know that I've been working with Nor and Chantal and the BJD's social media team for the last couple of years. But this is the first time our conversation has actually been recorded, so we'll be in our best behavior. So let's get cracking. We've got loads to talk about today. I'll just start off with a question for you both. One thing about social media is that there's a lot of it. There is just so much social media happening. It can seem like a never-ending sandstorm of information. So tell me, how and why do you use social media for dermatology research? And why should our listeners join the party?
SPEAKER_02Great question, Johnny. And Chantel, if you don't mind, I'll get us started here. Social media has a lot of uses, and I think for me, it's one of its strengths is staying up to date with information. There was a popular study from a couple of decades ago now that showed that with the advent of the internet, our attention spans reduced from 12 minutes to five minutes. And so I think that most of us have a hard time reading a journal issue cover to cover every month. So social media, at least for me, allows me to sort of digest bite-sized pieces of information from every issue. And for particular articles or topics that are of interest, such as skin cancer, in my example, I go back to the journal and uh sort of read through the article in greater depth. So the power of social media for me is to be able to get a good breadth of what's out there, what's up and coming, and what's latest in dermatology research. I think the second thing for me is also in a post-COVID world, social media has, I think, allowed me to maintain contacts, connections, and make new ones as well. And so I think the last time we all went to national or uh international convention was a little over two years ago. But we yet we still feel connected to some of our colleagues and collaborators as well. And I think that in part is due to social media. It has the advantage of not just keeping us connected, but leveling the playing field so that we are able to connect not just with mentors and experts in our field, but also with medical students and budding and aspiring researchers as well. And so I think one of the kind of topics that comes to mind that was hotly debated on social media with input from various experts and and non-experts alike was the COVID-TOS phenomenon early on in the pandemic. And we might come to the idea of misinformation later in this podcast, but I think it brings up both the benefits and sort of the cautionary tales behind um social media. So that's what it is for me.
SPEAKER_00That's really interesting. Thanks, Noor. And that's an interesting stat about five-minute attention span, just as we come up to five minutes into this podcast. So hopefully people aren't going to turn off just before uh Chantal gives her answer to this question. Chantal, what about you? What does social media do for you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and um thanks so much, Noor. They're incredible answers. And I think a lot of mine are very similar to yours because I've been fortunate enough to gain a lot of my social media skills and experience through meeting you and through the BJD social media team. To begin with, to answer your question, first of all, in terms of the availability of bite-sized information, I have found as a dermatology trainee that life can be pretty exhausting. Your bandwidth is can be only stretched so much. And I find that oftentimes I'm too tired or have other things to prioritize ahead of reading a scientific journal. And so I have found through the social media platforms that they provide easy access bite-sized information that can be used and read kind of on the go, i.e. during your commute to work or just having a cup of tea. So I find that really, really useful since joining the team. Secondly, again, similar to what Nora said, I have found that the social media, in particular Instagram, is a very clear-cut path to listening to patient voices and hearing what patients are saying and experiencing in the community. And so, yes, COVID toes was one of the firstly picked up through social media and similarly other different types of rashes that were seen in the COVID pandemic. And so I find it really interesting to hear that kind of first line through patient experience on social media.
SPEAKER_00That's great. And I'm really hearing from both of you this argument regarding connection, whether that is for us as dermatologists and the potential advancement of our careers, um, our research interests, for example, and and making kind of career connections, but as well as connections with patients. So listening to them. So that that's that's really cool. I think what's what's really interesting for us as a group is that just but picking up what Nora said is that for the last couple of years everything's been so remote and we've not been to any conferences, meetings, etc., uh for all that time. And the three of us have worked together really for the best part of two years, and we've not actually met face to face, which which is just I find bizarre. I think um some of us might be meeting at the AAD in in in a few weeks, so we might have a I might have a pint or two there. But uh that's gonna be a very strange experience to meet some real-life dermatologists uh face to face. And in the last couple of years, social media is what has united the community a little bit. And I think as you maybe mentioned, for for good, or maybe necess not necessarily always for you know 100% perfect good, perhaps. So let's let's look at research specifically and the different stages of research and how social media can apply to this. The most obvious way is dissemination of uh research, and that's been a lot of what we've been trying to do at the BJD. Let's think more widely and and practically with some hands-on advice for our listeners. Noor, do you have any tips for disseminating research on social media?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question, Johnny. And I think there's definitely an art to disseminating research. I think that I just wanted to make a small plug before I maybe answered your question, which is to say that here at the BJD, we have assembled a phenomenal social media team that has sort of come up with our vision and our our dissemination strategy. And so this is how this is tied to your question. And I think that not one single person can do it all alone. I think this is uh sort of a team effort, a conversation that happens online. And the BJD recognizes the power that social media has for disseminating um research. And we probably have one of the largest social media teams out of the top dermatology journals. So uh just wanted to make a small plug to say that this conversation here really is a reflection of the BJD's uh vision and strategy for social media. So I guess to answer your question about dissemination, and I think can probably answer this better as someone who's been leading our Instagram efforts. Um, so I will kind of keep my answer very short, which is to say that journals are increasingly recognizing the power of social media. And so I encourage sort of our listeners who are also going to hopefully be the folks submitting articles to our journal. I encourage them to use our submission sort of free text box for helping us kind of create the messaging that they want to share around the articles that they're submitting. So the whole purpose of our social media team is to lend voices to our readers, but also our authors and really start the conversation. So there is a free text box for coming up with a tweet around your submission. Go ahead and use that. Don't be discouraged to put your information and your thoughts on online. I think the social media platforms that we all are familiar with use algorithms, which may not necessarily make perfect sense why certain things sort of jump to the top of your news feed versus others don't. Don't be discouraged and don't chase the likes or or or don't be discouraged by the comments. I think that you create value by just putting your thoughts and your research out there. Don't just share a link, obviously. Do give us the context. Why is your research important? What is it offering? Um, how does it sit within the context of the broader field as a whole? And always invite opinions. People want to tell you what they think, and they're generally nice about it. So invite others to join you in the conversation. It's something that we feel strongly about at the BJD. And hopefully we'll get some time to discuss some of our efforts with the hashtag BJD Talks, a nice uh sort of sync to the podcasts with the Twitter conversations that are happening online. And so I'll stop there, Chantal. Maybe maybe you can um tell us a little more about that.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much, Nora. So just to reiterate, when you have done research and completed a paper that's been accepted for submission, there's a huge amount of work that you and your team have put into it. And social media is just another platform for disseminating all that hard work that you have done and perhaps getting some reward and some kudos um online for that work that you've done. So, in terms of practical tips on how to use social media, I would there is just a few different things that we have learned during the several year period that we have been running the BJD social media team. And the first thing would be consent. If you are using patient images in the dissemination of your research, it is extremely important that you have appropriate consent for social media. And this can often be different to your institution consent. Secondly, it's appropriate to make sure that you have given a proper appropriation to the work that you've done. So that if you have used an institution that has helped you with your research, that to be sure that you have tagged them as well and to thank them for the work as well. Finally, just when you are disseminating your research online, just be aware of what your own institution recommends and what their guidance is, and to be sure that they're happy for you to use the social media platforms to do so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's that's quite an important area to touch on, Chantal, because there are a few kind of like ethical pitfalls slash I don't know, I think it's apprehension from a lot of institutions and individuals, particularly maybe more leadership sort of senior um individuals who are a bit nervous about social media, not necessarily always in a way that that's often quite understandable because I think things have gone wrong on social media. There are a lot of there's a lot of negative publicity, you have to think about the institution's image and all of that. But I wanted to just turn to some of the because we will touch on on those practical ethical pitfalls shortly, uh particularly related to patients. I wanted to come in just and offer a few kind of practical tips at myself from a Twitter point of view, because if you're someone with a Twitter account and you're see you've maybe got a few hundred followers, mostly friends, some colleagues, but you're not exactly Twitter famous and you want to make it, uh you can. It it can seem intimidating, but you can do it. I would recommend telling a story. Social media loves a narrative. So tell a story with your research. It's about uh picking out some sort of translational message. This is why I like social media, because it helps you look at your research and think, so what? And tell that tell a message to the rest of the world, and you have to be ultra-critical about that and pick out the important pieces. As you said before, it's bite-sized. So you can do that in a few ways. I recommend tutorials. Uh, we've done some of those with the BJD. Uh essentially what you want to do is you want to break up the story of your research into a few little bite-sized pieces, link them all together, throw a few gifts in there, and there, you're sorted. You can also be clever and collaborative. So slide into the DMs of some famous Durham people who maybe have a bit of influence and say, can you please share my paper? I think it's important. And more often than not, they will. And in doing so, you're contributing to the community as well as pushing your own research out there, and ultimately that should be the goal, shouldn't it, dissemination? To share your work with the world. But does that matter, I guess, is is a question. What is the so what of social media in dermatology research? Is there any evidence that this has an impact? Does it affect the journals? Does it affect the work that you do? Do you guys know are there any studies that demonstrate the impact of social media on research?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I think that there is definitely journals wouldn't be recognizing the role of social media if it weren't there. Um I think there's an emerging body of evidence that suggests that social media directly and indirectly impacts sort of journal performance. And that includes things like citations, article views, and um there are alternative metrics that are now in place and well recognized for evaluating the impact that social media has on the journal's quote-unquote standing. And altmetric is one of them we're very familiar with, how that syncs up with the tweets about articles and how journals are interested in tracking those scores. Um, so uh I absolutely think that there is more to be done in this space, particularly in dermatology. I think a lot of the evidence that we have so far role of social media in dissemination of research is in other fields and increasingly being recognized in dermatology and especially by the BJD.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and just to follow on from that answer, the top five dermatology journals do have at least two social media platforms. And that just kind of reiterates how much importance that these journals are putting on social media going forward. And I think it's been quite striking in the past two to three years since COVID, in particular, that social media has really grown in its use and ability within the dermatology community. As Nora said, there is a lot of papers outside of the dermatology literature looking at altmetrics. Unfortunately, they're not really as applicable to Instagram because in order for altmetrics to work, you need to be able to link the article. And a lot of time on Instagram, we're just reposting a picture of a story, and so it's actually very difficult to look at the impact Instagram will have on citations.
SPEAKER_02And just piggybacking off of what Chantal just said, which is to say that each of these platforms is probably gonna end up playing a very different role for journals. So Instagram being a much more visual platform is probably gonna attract um readers in dermatology specifically to view sort of the clinical photos and learn dermatology in a very different way from Twitter, say, where, as you mentioned, Johnny, a lot of Twitter chats and tutorials and debates are are happening. And so I think it'll be interesting to watch each of these spaces and see how they converge in a lot of ways and how lumping them into sort of social media as a whole can benefit a journal, and how actually thinking about them separately is gonna be uh the path forward as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so essentially it's a strategy, isn't it? There is no one perfect social media platform. So I guess as a journal, an institution, or even as an individual, if you want to maximize the impact of your work, then you're gonna want to combine these different approaches. Just tagging onto what you were saying, Chantal, when I was doing a bit of homework for um this episode, because I do do homework for these episodes, I did come across a study, not within dermatology, unfortunately. There's not actually a lot of research about social media within dermatology for NOI. Um I'm sure we'll work on that over the next wee while. But there was a study I found in in a thoracic surgery journal, which actually did a prospective randomized control trial, like a social media trial, to determine the effect of tweeting on subsequent citations and kind of non-traditional bibliometrics, so altmetrics, as you mentioned. Which is I think fascinating because first of all, within medical education, we don't really tend to do many randomized controlled trials. Um that was interesting in itself. But it found that after one year of follow-up uh uh for this particular thoracic surgery journal, tweeting uh results in significantly more article citations over time, which is interesting because that will no doubt influence impact factor. So journals really do stand to benefits from this kind of approach. So I guess that leads onto the question: what does social media mean to journals, or in this case to the BJD?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, great question. And I think if it isn't obvious to our listeners already, we'll say it again, which is that the BJD has very much prioritized sort of growing and supporting our social media uh mission. And so our social media team, which was uh initially comprised of the three of us, has has since grown in the last year with the recruitment of three additional trainees to work on the platforms that we've been discussing in our podcast today. And so I think the vision that we have for social media is very much woven into the fabric of the BJD. We are an editorial team that is part of the editorial board at large. We attend editorial team meetings and we share in the challenges, the opportunities, the brainstorming with the rest of the editorial team. And so while our sort of more immediate and day-to-day role is to help with disseminating the BJD's articles and scientific published scientific research, we are also after kind of being a part and organizing a conversation online with our readers, our uh listeners, and our authors as well. So in addition to promoting sort of the current issues and articles, um, a lot of our activities are uh also meant to engage our readers online with uh BJD Talks being one example, as well as uh giving voice to our authors and associate editors and editorial board.
SPEAKER_00I think what's uh really coming out is that we want to be forward-thinking and we want to try to support our social media team as much as possible. I kind of visualize the role of social media here as being kind of a shop window for a lot of our research because you mentioned breadth before and bite-sized information, so it's trying to draw people in. You're not gonna get someone to read an entire journal article on social media. I don't know how you could possibly do justice to an entire journal article on social media, but you want to entice them in because that's the climate that we're living in, isn't it? Make the most of those five minutes you you have with them. And again, just to add to one of the points that you mentioned about having a big team is a really good tip for anybody who's trying to get involved with social media uh in disseminating research, is that don't do it by yourself. I've tried to do this by myself various different platforms over years, and you end up getting the guilt. I don't know if you guys empathize with the social media guilt. You just think, uh, I haven't I haven't tweeted or I haven't posted and in a few days, oh no, I'm getting avoidance behaviors. And you think, oh, they must think I'm terrible. Um so but you can't constantly be plugged in. You need to take a break. It can be a bit overwhelming at times. So I think you have to be kind to yourself uh as well when it comes to social media.
SPEAKER_02And I would actually also say not force it too, right? It has to sort of be a voice that comes naturally to you. So if the voice that you have is such that you sort of post sporadically when something, a challenge comes your way, or you want sort of advice on how to prep a presentation that's coming up, or you've got a paper that's come out that you'd really like to sort of have people tell you what they think about it, or you want to share uh an important study finding that that you have uncovered, then then that's great. But don't force it. It's really um an experiment that you can just play around with and if things stick, they stick. And that would be my advice.
SPEAKER_00And it's good advice. Let's move a little bit away from dissemination, because this isn't the only area uh within the research cycle that social media can play a role. Uh Chantal, just for your jobbing dermatology researcher, how might they be able to use social media practically just in undertaking research, whether that's in recruitment or any really any other part of the research pathway?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think it's a really great question. And one of the areas that I found really striking is that through social media you can identify a lot of unanswered questions and gaps in current knowledge, in particular that patients are asking questions about. And so I think to begin with, the um social media platforms offer an opportunity to develop good research questions, which will develop meaningful answers for the people that we're looking after. One of the things you mentioned in terms of recruitment as well, which we probably will touch on in a little bit later in terms of the ethics of recruiting patients through social media. But there has been a group that recruited patients from support groups for topical steroid withdrawal in Australia and completed a prospective study in that group. And I thought that was extremely interesting. I think that's something that we're going to be hearing a lot about going forward, and a lot more research is going to be done in that area too. And so I think they're really interesting points to discuss.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in in in one of the earlier episodes, we had talked a lot about patient and public involvement and uh it was about patient setting the agenda. And I think this is that manifest, isn't it? I know there's a lot of priority-setting partnerships which use social media as quite an important part of their work, uh, which is uh very cool. But I would imagine there are some challenges potentially when it comes to that. So I guess I would open up that question really. Are there any ethical dilemmas in using social media for research?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question, Johnny. And I'm certainly no expert on this. I I think this is probably an area that is under active study. I'm sure that as with any sort of patient recruitment strategy, one has to be thoughtful and present to their institutional review board. I think one of the things that I consider that might be potentially challenging on social media is anybody can get on. And so patients in particular use social media for advocacy, for support, or increasing sort of um attention to a specific disease. And so I can imagine scenarios where posting a recruiting ad without much attention to sort of the ethics of it may be misconstrued in certain uh patient advocacy groups as potentially exploiting the vulnerable, et cetera. And so I think that IRVs are becoming more and more attuned to the implications of utilizing social media for patient recruitment. And I think a few ways to work around that might be to talk to the moderators of those groups in advance to check whether there are any rules for the group around recruitment for research and what those are. And then, of course, as with any recruitment strategies, being forthright about the study that you're conducting and and why why you're doing it. So I think social media we keep coming back to has a lot of power in today's world for understanding uh the latest advances, for contributing to them, for collaborating with folks, etc. And I think that we're only just beginning to scratch the surface.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And to just touch on from that, Nori, is the the vulnerability of the patients that we care for. As you say, they're on these platforms looking for guidance and support from people suffering with similar conditions or expertise in the field. And I think this is one of the roles that we play as professionals is to protect these groups. And I think history has shown us that in the past, when we start out with systems, there is inevitable systems failures. And we need to learn pretty quickly what is safe and what is not safe to do on social media. And I think we need to be slightly cautious to begin with to protect the most vulnerable groups in terms of any studies or research that is done. And I think we should pretty quickly make very clear guidance on what we're doing. One of the difficulties with social media is it's that it's worldwide. And from having worked, I've worked in Ireland, the UK, and the US, and everywhere is slightly different in terms of ethics for research and consent processes. And so again, we'll need to develop internet-specific guidance for getting consent and ethical approval for that type of research.
SPEAKER_00What's really challenging is that historically the world of ethical approval is not as necessarily a very fast-moving one. Whereas within social media, things move a mile a minute and there are new platforms which which rise and fall within the blink of an eye. I still remember Vine and Bibo and think back fondly. And we have to follow basic principles, don't we? Uh the most uh basic and appropriate one is to consider informed consent. And in an informed consent, you need to make sure that the subject or the potential participant has the opportunity to choose free of coercion. But it's hard to necessarily always establish that that that's the case on social media, because there are so many power dynamics that are there. As you mentioned, Nori, people are vulnerable and we have to make sure that we can help support their their ability to choose in a way that doesn't exploit our patients. Uh I don't envy ethical uh boards when it comes to approving these or rejecting these because it's such a fluid world. From my experience, kind of a medical education research, obviously this is usually working with medical students or or healthcare professionals rather than patients, so maybe a slightly different, slightly less vulnerable, but sometimes still a vulnerable group. Uh and these principles still do apply. Historically, there was a lack of understanding of social media. So initially this was often very held held up a lot, and then from my experience, we went we moved into a different domain where actually uh ethics boards preferred social media recruitment because it was generally in the public domain. So as they get anything goes, you know, if people are recruiting in the public domain, you've got uh access to everyone, it's fine, you only need a gatekeeper involvement. But now social media has become more complex. It's not as straightforward as that. We now have Facebook groups and the you know more private social media, so you can't just slide into a specific group and and recruit people for a study. You need a gatekeeper. And you know, what control does that gatekeeper have? And are they being exploitative? And that it gets really controversial and really murky very quickly. So I think we we do need to think carefully about this as a community because it just gets more complicated the more you think about it. And I'll be honest, at the moment, it's making my head hurt. So I don't think we're gonna solve this in this episode, so we might we might just move on and on to uh on to some of the possibly an even bigger question, I think, um that I wanted to ask you both, uh, because it's it's one that's played in my mind for a while. You mentioned uh Chantal the topical stereo withdrawal syndrome, and that's something that has arisen hugely as a phenomenon, mostly driven by on social media, as do a lot of these poorly understood, underrepresented conditions across the various different specialties. They come out of patient interest groups, which normally these days come out of social media. Uh so there's a lot of really good stuff out there, but there's also a lot of misinformation, disinformation um out there too. So whose job is it to sort out the evidence-based information from the really harmful bad stuff?
SPEAKER_01That's a really interesting question, Johnny. And I think just to preface this, for topical steroid withdrawal in particular, there is over 300,000 hashtags on Instagram TSW, just showing how prevalent it is and how much concern out there there is for topical steroid withdrawal or topical steroid addiction. And I think what I find really concerning online is the anger and the upset that a lot of patients have that their dermatologists don't understand and aren't listening to their concerns. And unfortunately, there isn't a huge amount of information on topical steroid withdrawal that is scientifically based. And therefore, we cannot answer a lot of the concerns or questions that patients have thoroughly enough for them to be satisfied. And we have, you know, I think what's really interesting in the past in dermatology, we have been proven wrong. For instance, the leaf study, when we used to think that children shouldn't have peanuts, that it would promote peanut allergy. And then all of a sudden we realized actually, in fact, we should be giving children peanuts, and the more peanuts we give them, the less likely they are to become peanut allergic. And so I think it's always important as dermatologists to maintain an open mind. And I think it is something that is probably getting to the point that we really need to be doing randomized control studies and good ones to be able to answer these questions effectively so that we can help minimize and reduce the misinformation out there and also improve the relationship with patients who are suffering from what is described as topical steroid withdrawal.
SPEAKER_02I really like that, Chantal, actually. And I I would also say that I think as journals, our obligation or our duty is um as journal editorial teams to really partner with folks like patient associate editors and help translate some of that critical research to sort of layman's language that and and use social media and and some other media platforms to to disseminate um that that research. So I think equally important to doing the research is also disseminating it in ways that the public can sort of understand and uh digest.
SPEAKER_00I mean it's a it's a minefield and we have to be very careful. Your point, Chantal, about having an open mind is what really matters because uh patients trust us, and if you uh are too complacent, or as a community we are too complacent, then we may uh lose that trust. And what I find is interesting is that history is littered with examples of areas and conditions where uh patients uh knew first, they knew best, and they they got there first, and we followed because uh we were too slow, our our structures and our systems are too slow. You know, you have areas like HIV AIDS where patients really took on so many advocacy roles, and that's a lot of what kicked off the patient public involvement movement, and there are conditions that we still don't understand fully, like fibromyalgia, Ellis Daniel syndrome are various different types, that there are huge patient groups on social media who really feel underrepresented and that they don't have a voice. So I think kind of coming back to that question is who's who is responsible for all of that? I'm gonna ask you again because I don't think we really think the answered. Um is it us as researchers or is it the journals? Is it the institutions in the UK, the NHS, the American health system? Who should be doing this?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's so hard, Johnny. I think there's so many answers to that question. I'm gonna be like a politician. But really, I think dermatologists at the forefront need to start answering that question and answering it properly so that we can properly address the misinformation that is online.
SPEAKER_00Great. Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I think having a presence is important. I think we also have to be forward thinking as well. This is me just probably just pushing my agenda no way, but I do I do think that we have to be forward-thinking because these new platforms, people move rapidly and information moves rapidly, and there's a bit of a vacuum of information on newer platforms. Like, for example, let's just take, say, take TikTok. You go on TikTok and you look for not even steroid withdrawal syndrome, let's look at um acne. Uh, there are examples of people saying that you should use acid to burn away your acne, um, or or or use phototherapy or probably what is a very amateur version of phototherapy to burn away your acne, uh, which we know would cause harm. And yet, who is there to guard against such potentially dangerous information? Um, and is it our responsibility? So I think if there's no presence of dermatologists to step in and say, well, this is probably not what you should be doing, here is some better evidence, uh, it's difficult for patients. Well, then that's a lot of work. I just think as a as a community, maybe we have to be uh ahead of the curve rather than being reactive potentially. But I think it's going to be a bit of a journey um for us because I mean that this is something that you we have a ha we've chatted about before a lot, is that in the UK at least, it's hard to community build on social media because not necessarily all of our leaders or bosses all are want to be on social media or not everybody feels comfortable about social media. There's not a lot of necessarily even registrars on Twitter, for example. This is an area that a lot of medical students and more junior doctors are living in. So maybe we're gonna see a lot of this in the future. Do you think things are gonna change?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question, Johnny. I think things are definitely already changing. I think in the last three years that we've been at it, uh, with the BJD, we've definitely seen and a growth of our community online and um sort of the degree of engagement and participation has really astounded us. So I do think that things are definitely changing, and it's changing not just on the journal level, which I think we've spent a lot of time in this podcast talking about, but also on the individual contributor level. There are way more practicing dermatologists with presence online on Instagram, on Twitter, um, and even on TikTok. And so I think, as you both are saying, as a community, it does behoove us to be proactive and spread the the evidence-based medicine that we spent all these years uh learning and are continuing to spend all this time staying up to date with. So I think that times are definitely changing and being proactive about this is the way forward.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So we've had a lot of academic chat. Let's get to get the good stuff, the stuff that people have really been waiting to hear from us. Who do you think our listeners should be following on social media? Tell us some big names, apart from yourselves, of course.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I was gonna say, apart from uh Jay Gox on on Twitter, um, unless you're a Manchester United non-fan, in which case you probably don't want to follow Johnny on Twitter. But um there are some great accounts online, and I think that starting definitely with the top dermatology journals, or like a plug for the BJD, um, we're very active and very engaged on Twitter and Instagram, and so follow us on on these platforms. I don't know. There are a lot of good individual um contributors as well. And I think searching by hashtag is also one strategy to go about finding those accounts that might be interesting to our listeners. So um on Twitter we have a budding and and growing community called um hashtag DermTwitter, which you guys may be familiar with. And on Instagram, I don't know, Chantel, what what do you like to follow?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think on Instagram there's lots of different avenues you can explore. I really like from becoming from a medical background, like things like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet, they have fantastic clinical images and clinical cases that I always learn a lot from. Similarly, from an educational perspective, there's some really great dermoscopy education accounts on Instagram. And one in particular we've collaborated in the past with, but they are really, really good um learning forums. And then from a personal perspective, there is a lot of really great dermatologists on Instagram who give very good career advice as a dermatologist. And so I would really encourage you to follow them as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I would echo from an Instagram point of view the dermoscopy Instagram accounts. I think it's is it dermoscopy underscore? They're absolutely great. I just if I'm I'm just sat procrastinating, uh, you know, knowing I should be doing some some work and then I'm on Instagram just scrolling through stories and oh, there we go. I'm actually doing some work, it's great. I can I'll I'll I'll I'll just say that oh that's the BCC. Oh wait, no, it wasn't. It was it was um I said K. Oh no, oh well. Next. And you go you go through all of those. I guess on Twitter there are, I mean, there are far too many for me um to mention. If I had to mention one, he's not paying me to say this. Um I would probably say David Harker, because he does quite a lot of uh tutorials uh and quizzes and things like that uh on Derm Twitter, which are really good. There'll be loads of people I haven't met I haven't mentioned, so sorry if I if I've not mentioned you. Uh I'm sure when we tweet this out, I'll put some names on for people to recommend. But I would recommend following the hashtag, hashtag DermTwitter, because there are loads of you could say many celebs out there uh who are um doing doing some really great work to share this community out there. I would say probably the US is winning so far in terms of if you had to compare nations that that are taking this on, but we're doing our bit. Well, I'll say I I I mean I'm the only UK-based person in this conversation, no actually, since Chantal since you moved, so I'm doing my bit for UK Durham Twitter. Um I'm sure there are plenty out there who do who haven't betrayed us and moved across the water and do and and and uh and doing the same. Thank you so much, guys, for uh your time. It is honestly it's been an absolute blast as always. Uh brings us to the end of today's episode of BJD Talks. We've suggested how you might be able to join in the social media bandwagon in a way that is most useful for your research, uh, as well as tackling these wider philosophical challenges that advanced social media present uh to our community. So, uh Nora Kibi, thank you very much. And Chantal Cotter, thank you very much. Uh it's been uh uh great to have you on the podcast, and hopefully we'll we will have you on again at some point.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Johnny. Thank you so much, Johnny. It's been so much fun chatting with you today.
SPEAKER_00We look forward to sharing the next episode of BJD Talks, and in the meantime, please do let us know if there's any hot topics or interesting issues in dermatology you think we should be discussing. Of course, it would be silly of me not to mention that uh we are on social media, uh, so you can reach us via at brjdermatol on Twitter and at brjdermatology on Instagram, or by using the hashtag hashtag BJD Talks. So thanks so much, guys, and bye for now.