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ASCO 2018

ASCO 2018: Striking the Right Tone: Optimizing the Use of Social Media During Conferences

Chicago, IL (UroToday.com)  Deanna Attai, MD a breast oncologist from UCLA, presented a relevant and contemporary talk discussing the optimization of social media during medical conferences at the 2018 ASCO annual meeting. Since the 2011 ASCO annual meeting we have seen an explosion of people tweeting about the meeting, with 1,429 total authors and 434 news authors in 2011, compared to 15,796 total and 4,691 new authors tweeting at the 2016 ASCO meeting. In addition to the general uptake of social media over that time frame, tweeting lends itself to improving the conference experience, as conferences have traditionally relied on a didactic, theater set-up. Twitter allows one to be in multiple simultaneous session ‘virtually.’ As Attai notes from an old tweet “Twitter is like the audience mic at a conference but without the ability of the expert to close the discussion.” 

The key to tweeting at a conference isn’t to try and tweet the whole conference of session, but rather to tweet little ‘gems’ that may be of interest to others not in attendance. Furthermore, Twitter allows one to connect remotely with colleagues and then meet and collaborate at the actual meeting. Attai credits Meredith MacMartin (@GraniteDoc) with the following tweet, summarizing this sentiment: “Beware! Medical conferences are the Twitter gateway drug! Next thing you know you will have hilarious people to hang out with and will want to keep in touch all year between conferences.” 

Some have voiced concerned about meeting attendees tweeting results that have not been peer-reviewed. In fact, previous meetings have tried to lock down photo sharing from media outlets such as Twitter, with an uproar of response against this notion from the medical community and general public. In response to this, Attai states that several governing bodies and marque journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, have made public statements that results tweeted or shared at meetings do not break embargo rules and can still be peer-reviewed for subsequent publication. Nonetheless, it is common courtesy to respect a presenter’s wish to withhold from data sharing via social media if requested, particularly in the setting of highly classified or time-sensitive results. If new to Twitter and attending a meeting, such as ASCO 2018, Attai makes several important points:

  • Assemble a professional looking Twitter profile, with a pleasant picture and biography
  • Most meetings list a panel of Twitter ‘experts’ to follow to understand the public forum and to learn. Follow them
  • Don’t forget that the internet is a permanent record, so be careful what you tweet
  • Follow the meeting hashtag (#ASCO18), as well as some of the other disease-specific hashtags, such as prostate cancer (#pcsm), kidney cancer (#kcsm), and bladder cancer (#blcsm)
  • When you start to tweet, credit the author/presenter 
Attai concluded by highlighting the ASCO “Tips for Use of Social Media”

Presented by: Deanna J. Attai, MD - Department of Surgery, UCLA Health Burbank Breast Care, Burbank, California
Co-Author: David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, UCLA Health Burbank Breast Care, Burbank, California

Written by: Zachary Klaassen, MD, Urologic Oncology Fellow, University of Toronto, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Twitter: @zklaassen_md at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting - June 1-5, 2018 – Chicago, IL USA