More About Online Forums for Students and Faculty

To the Editor:

We are two academic physicians who have participated in the Student Doctor Network (SDN) for almost a decade and have been on its staff as unpaid moderators for about five years. In response to the letter to the editor by Jain and Maxson¹ that raised concerns about online forums for premedical and medical students, we would like to note some unique positive aspects of the SDN that have made us continue to work as part of that organization.

As an online forum, the SDN provides resources to premeds, medical students, residents, and faculty that are unavailable elsewhere. For example, it enables nontraditional students to communicate freely with similar students, helps faculty answer students' questions, and offers a forum for students to discuss personal issues in an anonymous fashion (such as histories of illnesses and personal challenges, including sexual assault) and how these might best be handled in the application process for medical school and residency. We are certain that if it were not for the SDN, many of these individuals would have difficulty identifying a place to share those concerns.

That over 100,000 individuals have registered to participate and posted over 10 million comments on the SDN since it was established in 1999 is evidence of the value of such a resource. The SDN does not replace face-to-face career counseling, but augments it. The SDN′s forums are also a chance for students and other trainees to hear each side of an argument and thus develop deeper and more sophisticated perspectives on the issue being discussed. This process is essential to the development of excellent academic physicians.

We believe it is unfortunate that more academic physicians do not participate in social media, including the SDN, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. These are powerful tools to provide insight into academic medicine that is accurate and positive. Social media tools are transforming educational methods, political action, and business.

We urge our colleagues in academic medicine to embrace these emerging forms of communication. We welcome e-mails from those who are interested in learning more about the SDN and contributing to the online interchange that is fast becoming essential.

Steven Abrams, MD

Professor of pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine,

Houston, Texas; [email protected].

Harley Friedman, MD

Program director, internal medicine residency

Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire.