The Use of Social Media in the Patient-Doctor Relationship

Many highly regarded medical doctors have developed guidelines to promote themselves professionally when connecting with their patients through social media sites (Sullivan 2018). However, many still use these platforms for marketing rather than disseminating appropriate medical information. This paper surveyed a sample of medical doctors in Iraq, and it aimed to analyze the motivations behind their use of social media to communicate with their patients. Follow-up interviews were organized at eight medical locations in Iraq, where the doctors were interviewed to gain additional data. Social media offers doctors the ability to enhance their relationships and improve their marketing, and this study identified high overall social media usage among doctors in Iraq (with 79% male doctors and 21% female doctors using social media). The participants’ listed specialties were as follows: 8% dentists, 10% internists, 20% general surgeons, 12% urologists, 4% cancer doctors, 9% OB-GYN, 4% family specialists, 9% pediatricians, 5% dermatologists, 2% ophthalmologists, 3% rheumatologists, and smaller percentages of anesthesiologists, radiologists, and orthopedists. Years of experience also proved to influence social media use, with less experienced doctors using it more often

Political science · Social media · Empathy and Medical Education · Law · Psychology · Social Media in Health Education · Social Psychology