The Study in Utilization of Social Networking Website Facebook in Educational Training of Medical Students in the Emergency Room

Abstract

Background: “Facebook” is being used as an educational tool in emergency room. This study will look at the use of social networking website like Facebook as a training tool for medical students.

Objective: This study focusses on the utilization of social networking website “Facebook” in educational training of medical students in the Emergency room.

Methods: ERRAMA facebook website was create. The medical students were advised to become a member of the website and utilize it as a source of their educational training in study of interesting cases. The data was collected from the daily use of the website by the medical students from March 16, 2011, to July 14, 2011.

Results: A total of 200 students applied for the membership of Facebook: ERRAMA. Out of these, 112 were 5th year medical students (70% of Year 5 students) and 88 were 6th year medical students (67% of Year 6 students). From a total of 470 cases uploaded on the website, 41% were interesting cases, an average read of 378 per case and the average comments made per case was 3.4.

Conclusions: The use of social networking website Facebook: ERRAMA as an educational tool for medical students in the Emergency room received good responses with high visiting counts. The students were interested in reading the case with high attendance per case but the average comment per case was low (about 4 comments per case). The topics that contain images are popular, based on the numbers uploaded and visited by student.