By Katie Kennedy CREATION.co’s CEO, Daniel Ghinn, recently interviewed Dr Amar Puttanna for the podcast Better Listening for Better Health on how he uses social media to support his work in diabetes. He is also the co-director of GoggleDocs, a group of U.K. based healthcare professionals who share a passion for medical education and improving the life of people with cardiovascular-renal-metabolic conditions. Dr Puttanna describes himself as a consultant diabetologist whose passion project is social media. He has had a presence on multiple social media channels since 2017.
Social media for education
In his discussion with Daniel, Dr Puttanna shared an interesting belief around knowledge and the idea that to test how well you know something you should see how you teach it to others. This ethos has spurred him to utilise social media to disseminate what he learns online in order to process it fully as well as share it with others who might be interested. He says that, having joined Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram fairly late (he joined Twitter in 2017), these channels gave him a way to share his knowledge while also networking with others he wanted to learn from.
Dr Puttanna first started using social media as a way to continue discussions and share learning from key congresses. As the pandemic hit in 2019, he started to miss the mental stimulation he found from conversations at congress on topics like data. This ignited ideas on how social media could help him keep up with this education and connection. He started running podcasts to review and discuss learnings with his colleagues. Initially, these were audio-only before moving to YouTube and incorporating video.
With an interest in exploring new, more engaging ways to connect with his colleagues, Dr Puttanna started exploring the format of “tweetorials” and, more recently, new channels like YouTube shorts where he has trialled incorporating GIFs and memes to help improve content engagement. Interestingly he has found some of these online relationships have now moved offline having collaborated and written papers with a number of his social media connections.
The benefits of using social media
With more data and information coming through every day, Dr Puttanna recognised social media as a way to keep abreast of cutting edge developments in his field. Social media allows him to connect with experts in certain areas he may be less confident in and grow his knowledge. Sharing his thoughts online with his peers gives him a chance to consider what he is hearing and confirm if his approach is correct. It has provided him with a forum to have those in-depth conversations previously only available at congress.
Through social media Dr Puttanna hopes to provide a place for informal scientific discussion where opinions from a multi-disciplinary team are heard. He aims to bring the diabetes perspective to this wider discussion and be recognised as a representative for his speciality.
Our experience of Digital Opinion Leaders
Digital Opinion Leaders like Dr Puttanna are HCPs who are leading and engaging peer to peer scientific conversation online. Having studied, engaged and collaborated with Digital Opinion Leaders since 2012 we often see that what drives them, unlike traditional influencers, is not necessarily to be recognised or for financial gains but to truly support the field in which they work. Networking, education and collaboration are some of the main reasons HCPs embrace social media.
Dr Puttana says that throughout his work, he has continuously held an ethos to always be true to himself and share only what he found interesting. He feels it is this integrity that builds trust among his peers and makes him a true Digital Opinion Leader.
For more information on Digital Opinion Leaders read our white paper ‘Activating HCP Digital Opinion Leaders’.
