Social media as an educational tool in interventional cardiology

Abstract

Social media and the internet have changed the way we communicate with each other. We have never had so much information on this or that topic and never in such a direct, fast and global way. However, this new era does not come without risks and because everybody can be a potential creator of content, information itself has never been so susceptible to bias and demagogy. The capacity of social media to expose information quickly and generate discussion among users has given rise to its application in the world of policy, business, radio broadcasts and academia world.1 Medicine is no stranger to this technological renewal and today we have doctors who are media-savvy. As it happens in many other aspects, cardiology is at the frontline of this trend. As well as practical training and technical skills, essential for interventional cardiologists, theoretical training and constant update are also indispensable. The subjects covered in our core curriculum are increasingly difficult to apprehend since they include topics not only from general cardiology but also from interventional cardiology: physiology and coronary imaging, hemodynamics, techniques for the percutaneous treatment of coronary lesions (more and more complex) and structural cardiomyopathies, knowledge of devices and technical development, etc. An ideal...