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Launch of the ASNC Social Media Task Force Monthly Blog Program

Guest Blogger: Renee P .Bullock-Palmer, MD, FACC, FAHA, FASNC, FASE, FSCCT
Introduction of the Social Media Task Force Committee
This year the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) initiated the Social Media Task Force committee that was created in an effort to create a platform that will serve as a bridge between the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology and its members to promote education of its members, encourage professional engagement between the members and leaders within the Society, raise awareness amongst members of the Society with regards to several initiatives within the various committees of the Society and to serve as a vehicle to promote the various legislative activities of the Society. The Task Force will also serve as a communication channel for members of the Society to raise awareness of several educational meetings, webinars, research activities or tutorials that are relevant to the field of Nuclear Cardiology. The overarching goal of this Task Force is to increase membership and member engagement through social media to promote the practice of Nuclear Cardiology globally. The Social Media Task Force committee is chaired by Renee P. Bullock-Palmer, MD, FASNC with the vice chair being Niti R. Aggarwal, MD, FASNC and includes the following members Sanjay Divakaran, MD, Gabriel Grossman, MD, PhD, FASNC, Thomas Hauser, MD, Ahmad Masri, MD, Brett Sperry, MD and Alexandra Taylor.
 
Renee P. Bullock-Palmer, MD, FASNC
ASNC Social Media Task Force
Committee Chair

Director of Non-Invasive Cardiac Imaging
Director of Women's Heart Center
Deborah Heart and Lung Center,
Browns Mills, NJ
@RBP0612
 
 
Niti R. Aggarwal, MD, FASNC
ASNC Social Media Task Force Committee Vice-Chair
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
@NitiCardio
 
Sanjay Divakaran, MD
Associate Physician,
Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
and Cardiovascular Imaging Program,
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, MA
@SanjayDivakaran
 
Gabriel Grossman, MD, PhD, FASNC
ASNC Social Media Task Force
International Liaison,
Director, Department of Nuclear Medicine,
Moinhos de Vento Hospital,
Porto Alegre, Brazil
@Ggrossman11
facebook.com/gabriel.grossman.37
 
Thomas Hauser, MD
Director of Nuclear Cardiology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, MA
@ThomasHauser_MD
 
Ahmad Masri, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Oregon Health & Science University
Co-Director, OHSU Amyloidosis Center
Director, OHSU Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center
Portland, OR
@MasriAhmadMD
 
Brett Sperry, MD
Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist,
Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute
Kansas City, MO
@BrettSperryMD
 
Alexandra Taylor
Student, Northeastern University
Boston, MA
@alexandra_tay1
 
Importance of Social Media
Over the last fifteen years the expansion and utilization of social media has grown significantly with an eightfold increase since 2005 (1). Social media is generally defined as an internet-based platform that allows individuals or communities to virtually gather to communicate ideas, collaborate, share information, share pictures and videos, either as a direct message or general post in real time(1). Social media has become increasingly relevant in this COVID-19 era during which social distancing has become a new reality. There are several social media platforms that healthcare professionals may use, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Doximity, and Facebook. In other countries there are several other social media platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and Sina Weibo. Social media has been a very popular platform in the field of Cardiology with many cardiologists, cardiovascular research scientists, other cardiology providers, professional journals and cardiology-based professional societies using this platform to expand their reach to their colleagues, professional society members, and the public in an effort to educate, advocate and raise awareness (2).
 
Social media has several roles in the Cardiology field. These roles include networking, sharing meaningful opinions, fostering educational discussions centered around a cardiology topic or paper of interest, promoting or raising awareness of the latest research or guideline publication, promoting a professional meeting or event, promotion of healthy initiatives, collaboration among colleagues and support of colleagues (2). In fact, social media activity related to a publication paper has been shown to increase the citation rate of the paper and therefore helps to promote published academic work (3).
 
In this era of COVID-19, increasingly many medical professionals including cardiologists are engaging in social media not only to connect with colleagues but to also share valuable educational material either in the form of tweetorials or links to educational webinars or virtual professional meetings. In the current pandemic there have been many professional meetings that have occurred or will be occurring virtually such as the annual scientific meeting of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC 2020), the American College of Cardiology (ACC ‘20), as well as the annual meetings of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology (ASPC) and the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT). Social media has shared many important educational posts prior to, during and after these virtual meetings to aid in educating others in the field. Social media has also shared among medical professionals valuable information including published literature with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic such as personal protective equipment recommendations as well as recommendations on diagnosing and treating patients with COVID-19 infection. More relevant to the field of nuclear cardiology, ASNC published a joint statement and webinar with the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) on recommendations with regards to practice in the nuclear lab in the era of COVID19 (4) and more recently ASNC had a follow up webinar on restarting nuclear lab services in the era of this pandemic as well that was led by President-elect Randall Thompson, MD, FASNC, and other panelists from the United States, China, Singapore and South Korea. These documents and webinars were widely disseminated on social media as well. Additionally, there was a recent publication on resuming multimodality cardiovascular imaging services in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that was also widely discussed on social media (5).
 
ASNC has engaged its members virtually on social media such as Twitter through several educational programs such as the ASNC Nuclear Cardiology Virtual Elective webinar series of case based lectures for fellows that engaged its members over a 2 week period and attracted over 200 participants for each of these daily sessions. Additionally, there was a series of ASNC Virtual CV Molecular Imaging Seminars that was equally a very popular and very well attended series of webinars. Most recently ASNC has launched its monthly “Clinical Applications of PET Imaging” series of case-based tweetorials that was launched by Dr. Mouaz Al-Mallah.
 
Goals of the Social Media Task Force Bloggers Program
In an effort to maintain ASNC's educational and professional wellness outreach to its members in the virtual space the Social Media Task Force has launched the Social Media Task Force Blog program. This program will operate as a vehicle to educate members of the cardiology community on clinically relevant topics in the field of nuclear cardiology as well as topics on professional wellness and career development.


Figure 1. Outline of areas that will be covered by the ASNC Social Media Task Force blog program
 
The subject areas that will be covered (Figure 1) include cardiac single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), cardiac positron emission tomography (PET), innovation in imaging, cardiac amyloidosis as well as other infiltrative cardiomyopathies, hot spot imaging, multimodality imaging as well professional wellness and career development. The writing group of these blogs will include members of the Social Media Task Force committee as well as members of ASNC leadership development program (LDP) and fellows in training (FITs). We will also include updates from each of the ASNC committees by the committee Chairs in a blog section called 'Committee Connections'.  The Social Media Task Force Blog Program will likely build on ASNC's Social Media activities, and further serve to promote education, innovation, well-being, and awareness of ASNC societal activities amongst its members. Follow ASNC on Twitter at @MyASNC and search #CVNuc for all our social media posts on Twitter.
 
References:
  1. Ventola CL. Social Media and Health Care Professionals: Benefits, Risks, and Best Practices. P T. 2014 Jul; 39(7): 491-499, 520.
  2. Bullock-Palmer, RP. The Powerful Role of Social Media in the Field of Cardiology
January 30, 2019. American Heart Association Early Career Blog. https://earlycareervoice.professional.heart.org/the-powerful-role-of-social-media-in-the-field-of-cardiology/
  1. Eysenbach G. (2011) Can Tweets predict citations? Metrics of social impact based on Twitter and correlation with traditional metrics of scientific impact. J Med Internet Res 13:e123.
  2. Hicham Skali, Venkatesh L. Murthy, Mouaz H. Al-Mallah, Tim M. Bateman, Rob Beanlands, Nathan Better, Dennis A. Calnon, Vasken Dilsizian, Alessia Gimelli, Robert Pagnanelli, Donna M. Polk, Prem Soman, Randall C. Thompson, Andrew J. Einstein, Sharmila Dorbala. Guidance and best practices for nuclear cardiology laboratories during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: An Information Statement from ASNC and SNMMI. J Nucl Cardiol. 2020 May 15 : 1–8. doi: 10.1007/s12350-020-02123-2 [Epub ahead of print] PMCID: PMC7227175
  3. William A. Zoghbi, Marcelo F. Di Carli, Ron Blankstein, Andrew D. Choi, Vasken Dilsizian, Frank A. Flachskampf, Jeffrey B. Geske, Paul A. Grayburn, Farouc A. Jaffer, Raymond Y. Kwong, Jonathan A. Leipsic, Thomas H. Marwick, Eike Nagel, Koen Nieman, Subha V. Raman, Michael Salerno, Partho P. Sengupta, Leslee J. Shaw, Y.S. Chandrashekhar, ACC Imaging Council. Multimodality Cardiovascular Imaging in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic Ramping Up Safely to a New Normal. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2020 Jul; 13(7): 1615–1626. Published online 2020 Jun 12. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmg.2020.06.001. PMCID: PMC7290215
 
Renée P. Bullock-Palmer, MD is the Chair of the ASNC Social Media Task Force committee and is a board certified Cardiologist who specializes in and has a passion for Cardiac Imaging as well as Cardiovascular health in women. She is the Director of Non Invasive Cardiac Imaging as well as the Director of the Women's Heart Center at Deborah Heart and Lung Center in Browns Mills, New Jersey. She serves on several committees/workgroups in the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT), American College of Cardiology (ACC) as well as the American Heart Association (AHA). She's also the founding Chair of the Women in Cardiology section of the New Jersey chapter of the American College of Cardiology (NJACC). @RBP0612.
 

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