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Abstract
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1. Introduction
Twitter is a free microblogging service that was launched by a quartet of tech entrepreneurs in 2006. It is a popular social media platform with more than 120 million daily users, 48.6 million of whom live in the United States. Twitter users “tweet”, have “followers” (those who subscribe to one’s tweets) and “follow” others (subscribing to the tweets of other individuals). A tweet has a 280 character limit and can be on any topic fancied by its author.
As in many branches of medicine, traditional teaching models in forensic pathology have followed the “top down” or “command” model where all or most knowledge is transmitted to learners from a single authoritative source. There was little room to debate ideas out of the classroom or seek another experts opinion, much less one located on the other side of the planet. Social media has been reported to dismantle existing hierarchies and alter the way by which individuals organize and exchange knowledge, power, and influence.
The purpose of the review is to provide a preliminary evaluation on the effect of Twitter on such hierarchies in forensic pathology.
2. Methods
Review period is from March 2006 to August 31, 2019. From a registered Twitter account, the author conducted a search under the “people” option, for forensic pathologists with Twitter accounts using the term “forensic” or “forensic pathologists”. Only those with verifiable names were further examined. Verification of status as a qualified forensic pathologist was performed by consulting (online) national registries, state or provincial medical boards, or affiliated universities/institutions. Each name was checked for cross links with other forensic pathologists. The data was further sorted by sex, location, number of tweets, nature of the tweets (forensic versus non forensic) number of followers and numbers followed.
A manual scroll through of the 100 most recent tweets of the top 10 tweeters was performed to determine what percentage of tweets had forensic content. Forensic content was defined by tweets and retweets that included any or all of the following subject matter: death investigation, autopsy protocols and safety, quality assurance, forensic pathologist recruitment, testifying in court and teaching cases of forensic relevance including images of gross and microscopic autopsy findings.
3. Results
3.1. After excluding 2 fellows in forensic pathology, 5 anatomic pathology residents and a medical student, 31 accounts belonging to forensic pathologists (FPs) were identified of which 17 were female and 14 male. Fifteen (15) were located in the United States, 4 in Canada, 3 in the UK, 2 each in Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia (total 6), and 1 each in the New Zealand, Denmark and South Africa.
3.2. Characteristics of followers
3.3. Characteristics of those followed by the forensic pathologist
4. Discussion
Less than 5% of FPs of a largely English speaking cohort of 762 FPs have Twitter accounts. The cohort includes 49 in Australia [2], 7 in New Zealand [3], 48 in Canada [4], 35 in Malaysia [5] 86 in South Africa [6], 37 in the United Kingdom [7] and at least 500 in the United States [8]. Is this low level of engagement sufficient to cause a disruption in knowledge transfer hierarchies in forensic pathology?
4.1. Metrics of disruption - not all the same
4.2. Why are so few FPs on Twitter?
4.3. Hierarchies and how they can be disrupted by Twitter
4.4. The “Wirearchy”
First described by Husband in 1999, the “Wirearchy” is the “power structure created as the Information Age unfolded, disrupting hierarchical organizations and the fundamental construct of access to knowledge” [13]. The Wirearchy is really a disrupted hierarchy. The old command and control platforms typical of many organizations is dismantled and reconstituted as a more egalitarian communication engine through which the search for and communication of knowledge takes a more direct or an alternate path. It requires fewer “middle men” who may insist on the payment of some sort of “toll” as a prerequisite to knowledge transfer.
4.5. Limitations of this review
5. Conclusion
Twitter use by FPs is still quite limited and so a complete assessment of its effect on hierarchies at this point is impossible. However a preliminary evaluation suggests that Twitter has begun to disrupt learning hierarchies. It has broken down barriers to communication and increased opportunities to learn and collaborate. Twitter provides an opportunity for the population at large and pathology trainees in particular to interact directly with forensic experts around the world. These changes will continue if more FPs can be persuaded to register accounts on Twitter.
Language: en |