Feature - How to Twitter: a guide for physicians

440 THE JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTIVE ONCOLOGY 

October 2016 www.jcso-online.com

Feature

How to Twitter: a guide for physicians

PART 1 Creating an account

Jessica Craig

Go to www.twitter.com and click “Sign up” to create

an account or “Log In” if you already have an account.

To sign up, enter your name, phone number or e-mail

address, and password. Click Sign Up.

Twitter will prompt you to enter a username. You can

choose to skip this step, but you can also change your

username at any time.

Twitter will prompt you to enter your interests. is

is to help you nd your rst accounts to follow. You

can follow already or unfollow accounts at any time.

Twitter will also prompt you to import contacts from

your e-mail account. is is optional.

Welcome to Twitter! Once you have successfully cre-

ated an account, your Homepage will be displayed.

October 2016

THE JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTIVE ONCOLOGY 441 Volume 14/Number 10

Technology

PART 2 Your Homepage

From the Homepage screen, you can navigate to the “Moments”

screen, which displays current events that the Internet is buzz-

ing about at that time.

e “Notications” screen will show any recent activity

related to your Twitter account. For example, if someone has

recently followed you or if someone retweeted or liked your

Tweet, Twitter will notify you on the Notications page.

On Twitter, you can also send direct private messages to

other Twitter users. Click on the “Messages” button to com-

pose a message or to read a message.

In the top left-hand corner of the screen, you will see

your Prole. is will display your name (“Tutorial”)

and your Twitter handle (for our purposes, @oncpractu-

torial). Here you can add a prole picture and a cover

photo. Twitter will also display the number of Tweets you

authored, the number of people or organizations you fol-

low, and the number of accounts that follow you. When

someone visits your Twitter page, they will be able to see

these pictures and numbers.

You can also add a description of yourself (or the orga-

nization for which the Twitter account represents).

Your live Twitterfeed will display tweets and posts made

by the people and organizations you follow. It updates

automatically and will alert you when a new Tweet

comes in.

If you click into the box that says, “What’s Happening?”

you can compose and post your own Tweet. Add a pic-

ture or video by clicking the camera to the right of

the What’s Happening? box. Once you upload a pro-

le picture, it will displayed to the left of the What’s

Happening? box (where the orange box with white egg

is currently being displayed).

You can also search Twitter for people, organizations,

publications, and posts on certain topics. In the top right-

hand corner, you see a search bar next to the orange

egg icon (which will display your prole picture once

uploaded). If you click on the blue icon with the white

feather next to the orange icon, you can compose a Tweet.

is search bar and “Compose-a-Tweet” icon will be dis-

played at the top of your screen no matter if you are on

the Homepage, Moments page, Notications screen, or

another Twitter member’s page.

442 THE JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTIVE ONCOLOGY 

October 2016 www.jcso-online.com

Feature

Searching for “e Journal of Community and

Supportive Oncology” will lead you to journal’s Twitter

page. Here you can see information about the journal's

account, and you can see all of the latest Tweets. is is

not the same as your live Twitterfeed, and you will only

see Tweets by (or retweeted by) JCSO.

On this same page, you can Tweet directly at JCSO.

When you “Tweet At” an account, the Tweet will be

public (unlike a private message), and it will notify the

account you are writing to rather than simply show up in

their Twitterfeed.

You can also Tweet At someone by composing a Tweet

(by clicking on that blue icon with the feather) and typing

the @ sign followed by the name of the account to which

you are tweeting.

PART 3: Retweeting and Liking a Tweet

So you see a Tweet you like, and you want to share it with your

followers. Underneath each Tweet is a row of light grey icons.

October 2016

THE JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTIVE ONCOLOGY 443 Volume 14/Number 10

e icon to the far left allows you to reply to a Tweet, this

is similar to Tweeting At someone. e second icon with

two grey arrows forming a square allows you to retweet

something. When you retweet someone else’s Tweet, it

A unique aspect of Twitter is the hashtag (#). Using a

hashtag in a Tweet allows your Tweet to be categorized

with other similar Tweets so that when someone searches

for the term you hashtagged, your Tweet and other simi-

lar Tweets will appear.

PART 4 The Hashtag

To do this, rst click on the blue icon to compose a tweet.

In your Tweet (beginning, end, or anywhere in the middle),

type a # symbol and continue typing the word you want to

be hastagged. As you type, a list of previously used hashtags

will appear as options underneath your typed letters. If the

hashtag is to be used for multiple words, forego proper

grammar and do not add spaces in between the words. A

space indicates the end of a hashtag. For example, if you

want to hashtag “cancer research” type #cancerresearch. Be

aware that some hashtags do not use capitalization, but

some do. For example, if you want to mention the Cancer

Moonshot Initiative, the hashtag is #CancerMoonshot.

Using the drop down menu that appears when you type

a # will guide you. e letters and pound symbol will turn

blue when you hit the space bar and complete a hashtag.

Social media and oncology practice

Social media, and Twitter in particular, is reshaping the

practice of medicine by bringing physicians, scientists, and

patients together on a common platform. With the pres-

sures for providers to remain current with new clinical

developments within the framework of health reform and

to navigate the shift from volume- to value-based, patient-

centered care, immediate access to a dynamic information-

exchange medium such as Twitter can have an impact on

both the quality and eciency of care.

One of the many attractions of the social media platform

is that it allows you to interact with authors and have access

to content and source materials in real time, according to

Dr Michael Fisch, who spoke at the 2016 annual meeting

of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago

earlier this year. Moreover, the information is archiveable

and searchable, and therefore accountable – and corrections

are instant, Dr Fisch noted.

is is particularly important for medical literature, for

which social media could be seen as an electronic “heads-

up” for the release of new papers, said Dr Fisch, medi-

cal director of the Medical Oncology Programs at AIM

Specialty Health in Chicago. In addition, by following col-

leagues and peers on Twitter and Facebook, colleagues can

guide each other to the literature in real time.

e social media platform is also an eective facilitator

for nding and connecting with other physicians. is can

be done by following colleagues, peers, bloggers, or organi-

zations in your area of specialty. For scientists, for example,

the platform can be harnessed to recruit participants for tri-

als as well as for linking up with other researchers; whereas

patients could establish a support group or check in with

other patients to see if they too are experiencing otherwise

unreported side-eects to medications they are on.

And don’t forget the website as part of the platform. Dr

Fisch mentioned a few that are geared specically for con-

necting physicians and scientists – in the US, Doximity

(www.doximity.com) and MedNet (www.themednet.org),

and globally, the MDring platform (www.mdring) and

ResearchGate (www.researchgate.net).

— Renée Matthews

Who to follow on Twitter

Twitter will always suggest new followers. Here are a few

suggestions to get you started:

@OncologyPractic

@jcs_onc

@HematologyNews1

@mtmdphd

@schmd

@ASCO

@DrJulieVose

will show up in the Twitterfeeds of everyone who fol-

lows you. e original account that created the Tweet

will still be associated with it. e heart icon allows you

to “Like” a Tweet. e icon on the far right gives more

options such as blocking a person’s account, reporting an

inappropriate tweet, or copying a link to the Tweet.

Technology