The use and impact of Twitter at medical conferences: Best practices and Twitter etiquette

The use of social media, and in particular, Twitter, for professional use among healthcare providers is rapidly increasing across the world. One medical subspecialty that is leading the integration of this new platform for communication into daily practice and for information dissemination to the general public is the field of hematology/oncology. A growing amount of research in this area demonstrates that there is increasing interest among physicians to learn not only how to use social media for consumption of educational material, but also how to generate and contribute original content in one's interest/expert areas. One aspect in which this phenomenon has been highlighted is at the time of maximum new information presentation: at a major medical conference. Hematologists/oncologists are engaging regularly in one of the most common forms of social media, Twitter, during major medical conferences, for purposes of debate, discussion, and real-time evaluation of the data being presented. As interest has grown in this area, this article aims to review the new norms, practices, and impact of using Twitter at the time of medical conferences, and also explores some of the barriers and pitfalls that users are encountering in this emerging field.