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The Irresponsible Use of Social Media Among Medical Students
Author(s) -
Curato Mark,
Husain Abbas,
Shah Kaushal,
Kanter Marc,
Egan Daniel,
Thompson Holly,
Silverberg Mark,
Jones Michael,
Melville Laura,
Bogoch Sally,
Swaminathan Anand,
BeckEsmay Jennifer,
Nguyen Thomas,
Dulani Tina,
Fernandez Elizabeth,
Adamakos Frosso,
JaraAlmonte Geoff,
Mukherji Pinaki
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
aem education and training
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.49
H-Index - 9
ISSN - 2472-5390
DOI - 10.1002/aet2.10392
Subject(s) - gerontology , library science , medicine , computer science
Emergency medicine (EM) remains a competitive specialty, and the residency application process is arduous. Medical students are applying to and interviewing at a record number of programs, and an additional stressor has been added with the introduction of the standardized video interview. Students have, for years, perceived the residency match process as opaque and high-stakes, and the competitiveness of our specialty in tandem with the novel facets of the process may be increasing that stress. The informal sharing of rotation and interview experiences and unpublished program information has always been a source of comfort and clarity to the applicant during this challenging time. The current generation of students is unique relative to their predecessors in that they expect program information to be transparent, detailed, and easily available. Indeed, a gap may exist between what is expected by these applicants and what is provided by the AAMC, medical schools, hospitals, and residency programs. We suspect that such a disconnect between expectations and reality in the midst of a stress-laden process has resulted in unprofessional coping mechanisms by some students, and these have been immortalized in online digital media. In recent years, as digital media have permeated many segments of our daily lives, students have turned to online forums such as Student Doctor Network (SDN) and Reddit to seek crowdsourced data and a supportive community. During the 2018 to 2019 application season, a shared open-access and freely editable online spreadsheet was utilized by medical students applying for postgraduate training in the United States. The document contained candid reflections on rotations, interviews, rank lists, and anecdotal data from presumed applicants. There are several examples in which students’ opinions, frustrations, and dissatisfaction are expressed with sexually explicit, hateful, misogynistic, violent, homophobic, racist, crude, and threatening language. In addition, there is language that is less vulgar yet still overtly unprofessional and disparaging to schools, residency programs, named individuals, and anonymous coposters. While a majority of these comments were made with “throwaway” accounts, the context in which they appear makes clear