Medical Professional Groups on Facebook: Useful Online Networking Tool?

Sunday January 13, 2008

Although many think of Facebook as merely a social networking site, there are quite a few opportunities for professional networking as well. I recently searched for, and joined, several groups for current and future medical professionals on Facebook. If you log in to your Facebook account, and click on “Groups”, and do a search for “medical” or “healthcare”, you may find many groups to join which are comprised of individuals who are in the same profession, or studying to be in the same profession, as yourself. Some of the groups I found include:

“Medical Students United” (5,000+ members)
“EMT’s – Emergency Medical Technicians”
“American Medical Association – Student Section”
“Future Medical Workers of America”
"Medical Transcriptionists"

Since I have just recently discovered these groups, I haven’t yet determined how active these groups are, or how useful they are in sharing industry information and ideas, or career networking. Therefore, I’d love to hear from any of you in the health careers community who are members of these groups, as to how you’ve utilized them and what you’ve gained, if anything. Or, if there are other on-line health career communities or medical networking groups you prefer, I’d love to hear about those as well! So please tell us - Which online communities have you found to be most helpful in terms of professional networking and sharing industry knowledge? Feel free to share your thoughts here or in the Forum! (It only takes a minute or two to register, and it's free!) Hope to “see” you there!