Tasir A Mumtaz, Saleem Khan, Zakiuddin G Oonwala.
Role of facebook for dissemination of medical knowledge to doctors and medical students.
Pak J Surg Jan ;32(1):7-11.

Students are most frequent users of social networking sites like Facebook. Our aim was to use facebook as a media for disseminating medical knowledge to young medical students, residents and trainee surgeons and doctors working in the emergency department. Th e literature available for using the facebook for medical book is very sparse. We published a book ‘handbook of plain x-ray abdomen in emergency (ISBN 978-969-9277-00-9) in the year 2008. To make it freely available, a page was created on facebook on 20th May 2011. Facebook web address is www.facebook.com/zakioonwalasaleemkhantasirmumtaz. Our aim was to disseminate medical knowledge among medical students and young doctors using facebook as a media. Material and methods: a web page was created on Facebook on 20th May 2011. Facebook web address is www.facebook.com/zakioonwalasaleemkhantasirmumtaz created on plain x-ray abdomen in emergency. Th e book was freely made available on the internet. Quizzes was created around the x-ray and posted on the page. Th e page was analysed on 24th December 2015 and the results documented. Results: Total number who like the page was till 23rd December 2015 is 1,984. Th e percentage of female was 38% and that of male 62%. Th e age group of the visitors were predominantly young adults. 89% were the age group between 18-34 years. Conclusion:Th e facebook provided an opportunity to create an educational page, post x-rays of good quality, have a discussion and answer queries. We were able to understand the statistics who visited the page, from where the page was visited, what were their queries and how to improve audience participation.

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