I’m a 3rd year medical student and I’ve already been caught off-guard a few times by the WILD medical misinformation my patients talk about, and figured that I should probably get ahead of it so that I can have some kind of response prepared. (Or know what the hell they’ve OD’d on or taken that is interfering with their actual medications)
I’m setting up a dummy tablet with a new account that isn’t tied to me in any reasonable way to collect medical misinformation from. I’m looking at adding tik tok, instagram, twitter, reddit, and facebook accounts to train the algorithms to show medical misinformation. Are there any other social media apps or websites I should add to scrape for medical misinformation?
Also, any pointers on which accounts to look for on those apps to get started? I have an instagram account for my artwork and one for sharing accurate medical information, but I’ve trained my personal algorithm to not show me all the complete bullshit for the sake of my blood pressure. (And I have never used tik tok before, so I have no goddamn clue how that app works)
ask your patients where they are getting their stuff from, that way you will also know what places are more popular than others.
I do ask them, but some of the things they say/ask about are just so baffling that I’d like to know about it ahead of time so I know what to respond with or recommend instead. Also, it’s kind of along the lines of needing to know all the slang terms for drugs so I know what they’re talking about when they OD on something or take something that interferes with their actual medications.
There I can help, well kind of: not a medical advice though!
I highly appreciate the effort you’re putting in - and in addition to preparing for everything practice w few communication patterns on how to make them give you the info you need. You won’t be prepared enough for some of the shit people come up with, no chance.
S good example could be a set of guided questions or statements they should disagree or agree with.
I’m not medically educated at all so I can’t come up with food examples but what I’m trying to say is: prepare at least as well for crazy as you’re preparing for hard facts.
And for the drugs I can at least give s language perspective: slang has often very local derivates so while pages Likes these are w good stating point: https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/drug-alcohol-slang/ nothing beats a native speaker.
So you could either start a career as drug addict, or if you lack the funds and time, you could reach out to your local social workers and ask them to give a brief slang training wherever you work. From experience many are very happy to help others who get helping!
Just a few ideas, perhaps something resonates with you! Good luck ❤️