Instagram and Clinical Infectious Diseases

Notes Disclaimer. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the the United States government. Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No potential conflicts of interest. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.

Timothy P. Gauthier1 and Earlene Spence2 1

Department of Pharmacy, Infectious Diseases and Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist, and 2 Department of Pharmacy, Post-Graduate Year-1 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Florida

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TO THE EDITOR—We read the article by Goff et al [1] with great interest regarding the relevance of social media (SM) platform Twitter to infectious diseases clinicians. We concur with the authors regarding the relevance of SM tools to infectious diseases practice and wish to call attention to the photograph-based SM platform, Instagram, as an emerging site of interest. Instagram is a free SM platform launched in October of 2010 that has been a part of Facebook, Inc., since April 2012 [2]. The platform reports a community of 300 million users as of December 2014. Each day users from around the world (>70% are outside the US) register >2.5 billion “likes” and share >70 million photos. Data from an American survey in September 2014 indicate 26% of online adults use Instagram, and half of Internet users age 18 to 29 years of age use Instagram [3]. Beyond the large number of engaged adults ( particularly young adults), it is notable that about half of all Instagram users access the site at least once daily. Posts on Instagram are shared as an image, which may be paired with a text of up to 2200 characters, including up to 30 hashtags. Similar to Twitter, Instagram does not require users to mutually connect; users may listen (view posts) or talk (share content) and users may “like” posts (similar to a “favorite” on Twitter). Privacy settings may be modified to allow open access to posted content (even persons without an Instagram account) or access only to those granted permission. Once a user elects to “follow” another’s account, that account’s posts will appear in the user’s feed (similar to the news feed of Facebook or the home stream of Twitter). An Instagram account can be linked to other SM accounts (eg, Twitter, Facebook) to enable simultaneous crosspublishing of Instagram posts, thus extending the reach of Instagram content to non-Instagram users. This is particularly

relevant for connecting with the most commonly used SM platform, Facebook [3]. SM is identified as an emerging field of research in medical education [4]; however, for Instagram a dearth of literature and policy statements exist describing its role in this regard. One publication from the field of dermatology recognizes Instagram as a unique mechanism for reaching younger demographic populations ( particular females), noting its potential to provide educational content [5]. Although hard data are lacking, numerous Instagram profiles exist today that are relevant to healthcare and infectious diseases. Table 1 provides a nonexhaustive list of Instagram accounts that may be of interest to the infectious diseases community. With its current user demographics, growing popularity and frequent user engagement, Instagram has great potential to be utilized as a mechanism for raising awareness, establishing inter-professional collaborations, and providing education to (1) future healthcare providers, (2) current healthcare providers, and (3) the general public. In this era of technological advancement and antimicrobial resistance we encourage infectious diseases clinicians to not only engage on SM platforms but also diversify their engagement.

Table 1. Instagram Accounts of Potential Interest to Infectious Diseases Specialists Handlea

Account Owner

Typical Post Description

Followers (n)b

Accounts from organizations @ASMicrobiology @CDCGOV

American Society of Microbiology United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Microbiology-oriented images, text varies Awareness and educational materials as well as credible health and safety information

2751 3695

@Figure1

Crowdsourced photo-sharing for healthcare professionals Clinic practice, education and research institution

Medical images accompanied by brief descriptive text Miscellaneous images and text generally aimed towards raising awareness for a variety of efforts

3516

Microscopy Provider

Microscopy-oriented images, text varies

4863

@Dr.Infection

Infectious Diseases Physician

Clinical images with descriptive and educational text

@IDstewardship

Infectious Diseases Pharmacist

Miscellaneous images with educational text centered around infectious diseases pharmacotherapy education

2218

@IMmemorandum

Not provided

Internal medicine images with brief descriptive text

5465

@MedLabMaven @MedicalBoardReview

Medical Laboratory Scientist Not provided

490 15 300

@MicrobiologyLab

Medical Microbiology PhD Candidate

Microbiology-oriented images with educational text Images of multiple choice practice board questions geared towards a variety of healthcare professionals Microbiology-oriented images, at times with descriptive text

@MicrobioLab

Microbiology student

658

@ResidentERdoc

Emergency medicine physician

Microbiology-oriented images with brief descriptive text Radiographic, wound and other emergency medicine-based images with descriptive text

@Stylish_Streaking

Medical Technician

@MayoClinic @Zeiss_Microscopy Accounts from individuals

Unrestricted accounts can be openly accessed at www.instagram.com/[insert handle] (eg, www.instagram.com/ASMicrobiology).

b

Follower count last updated 9 March 2015.

References 1. Goff DA, Kullar R, Newland JG. Review of Twitter for infectious diseases clinicians: useful or a waste of time? Clin Infect Dis 2015; 60:1533–40. 2. Instagram Press Page. Available at: https:// instagram.com/press/. Accessed 9 March 2015. 3. Pew Research Center. Social Media Update, 2014. Available at: http://www.pewinternet. org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/. Accessed 9 March 2015. 4. Cheston CC, Flickinger TE, Chisolm MS. Social media use in medical education: a systematic review. Acad Medc 2013; 88:893–901. 5. Karimkhani C, Connett J, Boyers L, Quest T, Dellavalle RP. Dermatology on Instagram. Dermatol Online J 2014; 20. Correspondence: Timothy P. Gauthier, PharmD, BCPS-AQ ID, Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist, Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Department of Pharmacy, 1201 NW 16th St, Miami, FL 33125 ([email protected] or [email protected]). Clinical Infectious Diseases® 2015;61(1):135–6 © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals. [email protected]. DOI: 10.1093/cid/civ248

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Microbiology-oriented images with educational text

a

3407

Instagram and Clinical Infectious Diseases.

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