1. Primary Cares: A Medical Student Primary Care Facebook Group
Heather Paladine, MD
Prantik Saha, MD
Hillary Grubb
Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
January 2011

2. Background
I’m co-director of a program at our medical school for students
Students continue in the program for all four years of medical school
Program includes clinical experiences, mentoring, and a research program
Students work with Family Medicine, General Internal Medicine, and General Peds
Currently have 12 students total

3. Background Challenges to primary care student interest:
Private medical school (Columbia) emphasizes research and subspecialty care
Even with this program, students have long periods of curriculum time without exposure to primary care - especially in the 2nd and 3rd years

4. Goals of an Online Group
Maintain longitudinal presence with students
Share information and encourage discussion about primary care
Create an online community

5. Why Facebook?
Easy to use - I don’t have the skills to set up or maintain my own program website
Free
I already had a Facebook account

6. Setting up the Group I started with only myself as a member
Posted some initial discussions to see how they look

7. Here, you can see my first discussion posts

8. Next steps
I invited the other faculty co-director and made him an administrator also
Then invited the students and faculty

9. Logistical Questions
Decided to keep this a private group - only myself and the other admin can accept new members
One choice was to make this a group rather than a page - the difference is that a group can restrict membership, while a page is open to the general public
Group members can only see the public information of other group members - they are not automatically “friends” with other members

10. Results
Group now has 13 members - 7 out of the 12 students and 6 faculty
9 discussion posts
1 student and 2 other faculty have posted besides myself

11. Group Members - there are now 13 total

12. Advantages Facebook set-up was easy
Lots of help available both on the site and on the internet
Many students and faculty are already Facebook members

13. Challenges Not every student has joined
Some people may be “Facebook resisters”
Concerns about privacy
How to keep up interest in the group?

14. Opportunities
Try to maintain student interest by putting useful information on the site
Use “Events” page to list primary-care related conferences they can attend
Post articles related to their research projects
Consider opening the Facebook group to other Columbia students interested in primary care (FMIG, Internal Medicine, Peds, student-run free clinics)

15. Primary Care conference information