When preparing a “hot topic” for presentation as a pediatric resident in the 1980’s, I would head to the medical library and search the Index Medicus for relevant articles, then comb the stacks and hope that the journal issues I wanted were available. Seems laughable. Thirty years later, “hot topic” information that once took hours or days to gather is accessible in seconds. More importantly, with the use of social media platforms, the information can be communicated widely within seconds. We, as an organization, can take advantage of these modern miracles!
This column will focus on the “Communications” aspect of the Membership and Communications Committee. One of our roles as a committee is to ensure that our membership benefits from our website and social media by connecting with one another, sharing information, and showing off our organization to the wider medical community. Hopefully, all members make use of our website, www.pedsedation.org. This site serves as the backbone for membership communication, with information about the structure of the organization, past and future conferences, research, quality, and educational offerings. Did you know that this same information is available as an app? “SPS” in the App Store brings you a link to a convenient format for phones and tablets.
The App serves as a gateway to other platforms for us to share information. You’ll notice that we have both Facebook and Twitter links. As of this writing, the SPS has 270 Facebook and 149 Twitter followers. In addition to the full SPS Facebook page, our nursing colleagues have their own Facebook group, “Pediatric Sedation Nurses”, with 58 followers. We have over 900 members, so there is room for improvement here. Jump on, sign in, and make your comments and questions known!
Recent SPS tweets highlighted conference abstract deadlines and a “great amazing sedation session” put on by some of our SPS colleagues at the Society for Critical Care Medicine’s 47th Annual Congress. As a multidisciplinary society, the use of social media can help us build bridges among our subspecialty islands.
In addition to communication via the social media platforms, the SPS has produced the SPS News and maintained a successful and popular Listserv for the past decade. More recently, weekly Sedation Communication bulletins began landing in member in-boxes. These short snippets are meant to notify us of new and exciting SPS-related events, and to keep us apprised of committee activity.
SPS members are a bright group of caring professionals with a lot to offer in the realm of pediatric procedural sedation. Let’s do all we can to share what we know!
