Thread by @laxswamy

Twitter allowed us to create something different in medicine. I think it's special for these reasons:
🔸Transparency
🔸Content
🔸Flattened hierarchies
🔸Low barrier to entry
🔸Voice
Here's what I mean...

🔸Transparency = public accountability. Less locker room talk. Patients & the public hear us & engage, generally raising the bar for the conversation, bringing in diverse perspectives, and forcing some degree of professionalism. Unlike what we see in some closed groups on FB.

🔸Content focused; although amplification is a focus, the discussion is built on content. It's fundamentally different to build on words w images & videos rather than focusing entirely on the snippet. Twitter threads can be long and detailed with many refs/links... Unlike IG.

🔸Flattened hierarchies. Years ago as a med student I was interacting w attendings across the 🌏. The quality of your reply can merit a response from the OP or others who may be quite out of reach IRL.

Not true on other platforms built for 📣 rather than discourse like TikTok.

🔸Low barrier to entry: how many people can log on anonymously and see everything? For free? Everyone can decide if and when and how they want to engage. The app and website are, for browsing, quite simple. Engaging is easy and generally has low stakes.

🔸Voice. Many of us have found our voices here- engaging in a sophisticated manner requires a refined voice, understanding how you may be misinterpreted today or a year from now. It also allowed others to find our voices- mainstream media during the initial surges, for example.

Those are the characteristics that come to mind as what allowed our broad, sometimes tightly knit, at times fiercely oppositional, dynamic multitude of voices to come together in a very human way -- exuberant & flawed, intelligent & biased, funny & cruel, sophisticated & crude.

For all it's very many and deep & very human flaws, I think we'll find a way to keep that going, here or elsewhere. But without those traits - without openness and transparency and ease of access, real content and a sandbox to find our voices- without that, it won't be the same.

These came to mind:
🔸@marklewismd connecting w patients through every tweet
🔸@kellywongmd for ⬆️ student access w #TipsForNewDocs
🔸@tony_breu - content 1st & always
🔸@MDaware who interacted w me when I was a med student
🔸@TheRealDoctorT who described finding his voice here