Snapchat as a Tool for Medical Education and Opportunity for Engagement

Abstract

PURPOSE: Snapchat is the fastest growing social media platform in the world, with a 158 million active daily users. Most of these Snapchat users (86%) are under the age of 35, suggesting a large untapped resource for medical education of junior faculty, fellows, residents, and medical students. Recently, Snap Inc. released spectacle sunglasses to record video from a first person perspective, and this may improve the usability of Snapchat as an educational platform. Point of care ultrasound testing is a fast growing tool in the critical care setting, especially among younger providers, also likely Snapchat users. With this potential synergy, a takeover snapchat project was launched in conjunction with the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) to educate and advocate for the Ultrasonography: Essentials in Critical Care course. The goal was to test the effectiveness of snapchat engagement and educational use of the new Snap spectacles in the medical community. METHODS: The CHEST ultrasound course on March 3rd-March 5th was broadcast via Snapchat and metrics were collected. Snapchat spectacles were used to create unique first person perspective medical educational videos combined with lecture slide pictures, pre-prepared CHEST educational pictures, and regular videos created with a hand held iphone device. To engage users, promotion was done on twitter and Instagram to increase awareness of the snapchat project. RESULTS: During the course, there were a total of 35 snaps uploaded. Twenty-eight of these were educational material, and of these 3 were pictures of lecture slides, 18 were video and pictures of echocardiograms, and 7 were video and pictures of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) screening. There were 149-218 unique viewers over the three-day period. There were no significant differences in the number of viewers based on type of snap. Users captured 79 screenshots to save material on their phones. 100% of the educational material picture snaps were captured by at least one viewer. The echocardiogram educational snaps had the most captures with a median of 7 screenshots (25-75% IQR 3-9) compared to the DVT educational snaps (median 1, 25-75% IQR 1-4) and snaps of lecture slides (median 3, 25-75% IQR 1-6). The feedback from this event was positive, with 2 compliments sent by snapchat users via the app, and 1 in person engagement and discussion at the course. CONCLUSIONS: In this initial project, Snapchat was well received by the on-line audience, with solid engagement. Capturing useful material directly to users' mobile devises is highly effective on this platform. This is the first known use of Snapchat for medical education.