Pathology and Social Media
It has the potential to be a powerful addition to the toolset.
The next in a series of brief excerpts from our interview with pathologist Dr. Eve Crane. While social media often gets a bad rap — which it often deserves — Dr. Crane talks about the positive impact it has had on pathology and what it has added to her career.
The WorkNotWork Show 0:42:02 While many are quick to dismiss social media, you have embraced it as part of your practice of pathology. Why is that?
Dr. Eve Crane 0:42:17 Yes, I think I have been surprised at how passionate I have become about social media — it actually is very powerful how a single individual can have a voice. Depending on what they say, that voice can really be amplified. I found that within the pathology community, there is an incredibly supportive, intellectual, very fun environment of people who are fascinated by these different mechanisms of disease who want to collaborate — who want to get to the bottom of these puzzles.
As a pathologist, you’re often on your own in your office. You see something, you’re so excited about it, you’re wondering “has anybody else seen this? Does everybody see this all time? I never noticed this before.”
You suddenly have a community where you can reach out and say “what do you think of this?” I typically use Twitter which you don’t post very much information. You may wait a while if you see something really unusual, but you may just post a picture of cells with a particular weird cell that really wouldn’t be of interest to anyone other than a pathologist.
But it’s so fun because it finds the random small set of the population that is passionate about the same things that you are. It’s opened up a whole new world for me, because now I see these same people at professional meetings, we write papers together, talk to them outside of social media as well to help solve difficult cases. They’ve given me opportunities to write chapters and other things. To me, it’s basically a whole community of which I enjoy being part.
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