There are so many social networking sites available - which ones should you join? In addition to the general sites for all professionals, such as LinkedIn, there are many social networks online that are specifically designed for healthcare workers.
Some websites are more broad, targeting anyone in the healthcare industry, while some social networks consist of one type of healthcare professional, such as doctors, nurses, or any other type of medical professional.
This list explores a few sites, to help you decide which ones meet your networking needs, depending upon what type of healthcare professional you are.
1. Medical Mingle
Medical Mingle is a website created by the owners of Absolutely Health Care, a medical job board. Medical Mingle is a "free professional social network for people interested in, working in, servicing, or studying for a career in the medical or health care field..." Medical Mingle offers blogging, job postings, and career resources.
2. MedXCentral
MedXCentral is another community that is open to medical professionals of any type or role. Whether you're on the clinical side or the industry side of healthcare, you can connect with others on MedXCentral. Like Medical Mingle, MedXCentral also has a facebook page where you can get additional updates right to your facebook account. MedXCentral has groups which are subsets of the larger community you can join based on your role or subspecialty within the healthcare field. MedXCentral works in conjunction with Twitter, YouTube, etc. Jim Canto, who started the network, regularly posts news and informational updates about the medical industry that you can receive on the site or via the facebook community. His goal is to "become a centrifuge for all things related to the medical and health care industry on the web."
MedXCentral also has a free staffing exchange called "MPOPS" - Medical Professional Online Profile Service.
3. Sermo (for physicians only)
According to the Sermo website, one physician member described this network as a "highly intellectual, vibrant, live community of doctors." Sermo allows physicians to explore job opportunities, share clinical information and do case studies, and earn honoraria while having their voices heard.
Sermo is exclusive to physicians and the site does require that you submit professional and personal identifying information in order to confirm that you are in fact a physician when you sign up to join the network. According to the Sermo site, features include interacting with drug experts, participating in forums with members of Congress, and numerous other opportunities to get involved, learn, share, and earn money.
Sermo's site states that it has 112,000 physician members across 68 specialties.
4. Ozmosis (physicians only)
Ozmosis is another network for "verified U.S. physicians" only. While it seems to have many similar features to Sermo, it does not to seem to be as large or established as Sermo. Upon visiting the site in May 2010, the site states it is currently "in Private Beta and is selectively expanding its Community of Physicians." Ozmosis was co-founded by an MD, and the site is touted as a most "trusted physician network", and one designed exclusively "by physicians, for physicians".
5. AllNurses.com
AllNurses.com seems like one of the largest, most active nursing networks. (That statement is is based primarily on the author's anecdotal evidence and observation - not on any hard numbers.) The site appears to be very active based on the number of threads and number of active readers at any given time, (4,000+ online when visited last), which is posted on the home page so you can see how many people are actually logged in to the site when you are there. Additionally, the site seems well-organized and easily navigated due to clearly labeled tabs you can click on across the top, which was very helpful at a glance.
6. Nurse.com - Nursing Forum
Nurse.com offers another large, engaging nurse community online. The site offers over 12,000 job postings in addition to nursing-related news, forum discussions, and other networking opportunities to interact with thousands of other nurses of all levels and specialties. Like AllNurses.com, the Nurse.com site also provides easy navigational tabs for a better user experience than many other networking communities.
