So far, the Division of Infectious Diseases' (ID) blog has had over 6,000 views since its Welcome post on February 14, 2017. They have provided 62 published posts, approximately two per week, to raise awareness of what the division is doing. Content includes topics like research, faculty publications, new faculty, events from a student's perspective, their microbiology collaborations, their outreach programs, training and even journal club posts.
Kelly Cawcutt, MD, assistant professor, knew something about writing a blog. She took ownership of the project on a six-month trial basis to see if there was any benefit for fellowship recruitment and promotion of the ID division.
Dr. Cawcutt said she cannot attribute the recent success of the fellowship recruitment to the blog alone, but they have had a lot more fellows apply to ID this year than they had historically.
She believes the blog is also good for the ID faculty and the department. Faculty development groups have been talking about social media and the implications for bringing awareness to publications.
The ID blog can be accessed through the UNMC homepage under News & Events, Blogs, Infectious Diseases. Dr. Cawcutt said that she pushes most of the posts out through Facebook and Twitter (Twitter handle: UNMC_ID), as well, to give it more visibility to a broader audience. She said the vast majority of their access to the site comes through social media.
Because the blog is paying off, Dr. Cawcutt is going to start getting help from a new faculty member and a UNO student. She encourages resident and faculty to provide content, and she has spent time educating others about writing content for a blog.
"Infectious Diseases is an incredibly interesting and dynamic field and we want folks to be aware of the terrific scope of activities that are ongoing in the UNMC ID Division,” said Mark Rupp, MD, division chief. “Many people rely on social media and internet blogs to keep current – with less emphasis on newspapers, magazines and professional journals. Therefore, to reach as broad an audience as possible, we've started the UNMC blog. Dr Cawcutt has done a great job in promoting our online presence and we think it is starting to payoff due to the greater awareness of what is going on in ID."
"This is a great addition to the communication efforts within the department and I applaud the ID division for their commitment to this," said Debra Romberger, MD, chair, Department of Internal Medicine. "I am grateful to Dr. Cawcutt for putting energy into this. The Dean's office is launching a new social media presence for the whole of the College of Medicine, so ID will be able to communicate some of their information to that process in the near future. Other divisions will also have that opportunity."