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Because of the explosion in the use of social media at conferences, every attendee is potentially their own reporter. Attendees broadcast their thoughts on twitter with a hash tag followed by the name of the conference and the year.
Thus, last year I was able to follow Chest 2012 by simply following “#Chest2012” on twitter. Attendees use social media to discuss presentations in real time giving you clinical pearls, findings of the latest research in pulmonary, critical care, sleep, and thoracic medicine, and even post pictures of slides demonstrating important findings.
By simply following the twitter feed of a particular scientific conference, you can easily learn about the latest research, clinical pearls, even check out pictures of key slides during a presentation.
I have taken this approach to several meetings, even ones that may not necessarily be within my particular field. For example, while it hasn’t been worthwhile for me to take the time and expense to attend Kidney Week or ASCO, or ACEP, I am interested to know what comes out of these conferences.
Following the tweets from those conferences gives me practical information diluted from a week of scientific sessions.
While these benefits are useful, there’s another significantly more tangible benefit that comes from using social media, particularly while at the conference itself: networking.
Over the past year I have been excited to have made connections through social media with many colleagues around the country. But making those connections through social media is only the first step.
Human beings are after all social creatures. Face to face connections are ultimately more productive and satisfying than anything that we can accomplish online. So at this year’s conference I will be looking to use twitter as a tool help me connect with my colleagues at Chest 2013.
By being active at the meeting and sharing my experiences through social media I’ll surely add to the community of professionals with which I interact.
A lot more at the original source: http://caduceusblog.com/archives/1366
