All right.
Well, welcome to the show, Damian Keter.
We are so glad to have you
with us today on our AOMP hands-on,
hands-off podcast.
Thank you for joining us,
first and foremost.
We appreciate it.
I would like to go ahead and
just welcome our audience
to our show today.
And today we're diving into
a topic about how we engage
with our patients, our colleagues,
and the broader healthcare
community through social media.
So today our guest is Damian Keeter,
who has not only leveraged
social media platforms,
for professional growth,
but has also studied it in
terms of better understanding its impact.
And so Damien is a clinician researcher.
He's a dad.
He's an active outdoorsman.
I think he likes hunting.
And he's a fellow Ohioan,
which I have a special
place in my heart for.
So that is awesome.
And he's actively engaged in OMPT research,
which is why we are so
excited to have him on the
show with us today.
So maybe you have read or
listened to some of his work.
So specifically in our today's episode,
we want to explore the
upside and the challenges
of social media in our
field and how it can be a
tool for connection,
education and advocacy.
But maybe there's a little
bit of ethical boundaries
that we also need to
explore so we don't cross lines.
From success stories to
potential pitfalls and
valuable lessons along the way,
Damian has some great insights today.
that he is going to share with us today.
So without further ado, let's jump in.
Welcome, Damian.
We're glad you're here.
Thank you, Megan.
Thank you for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
I do have to give a little
disclosure as I am a
federal employee that my
opinions today are my own.
They do not represent those
of the United States
government or the
Department of Veteran Affairs.
So now that we got that out of the way,
I'm really looking forward to this talk.
Well, you're the guy.
So I wanted to have this
conversation because when I
was coming into this
president role of AOMT,
right before I won the Manila Award,
we've really needed to be
challenged about how do we
engage in social media.
And so I've been diving in
and I saw that you
published an article in
twenty twenty three,
which was credible or questionable.
assessing quality of
evidence on social media.
And so you state this in the
social media platforms that
they can open the door for
misinformation that
challenges evidence-based
practice and that can
potentially influence patient care.
So I would love to dive into
this a little further.
I mean,
I think we'll probably hit
different tangents and
facets of the conversation.
But I can't wait to kind of
hear your experience with
this and maybe where did
you start to find a passion
to study topic of social
media as it influences practitioners,
especially in healthcare?
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
And it is it's, you know,
it's been a passion of mine
since I think I was in an
interesting generation
because I technically am a millennial.
I'm on the far end of millennials.
But because of that,
I got to kind of see both
sides of the coin.
And what I mean by that is, you know,
I remember the time before
that connection, before cell phones,
you know,
just connecting you to
everything instantly.
And then I saw the
transition towards that.
So, you know,
I remember when Facebook
first came out and I
remember before it and then after it.
And so, you know,
I got to kind of see how
things changed in real time rather than,
you know,
some and I was in the
generations using those things.
A lot of these individuals
using these things and, you know,
college and stuff like that
when it when they came out.
So it was a really
interesting thing to see
the transition of it.
But with that,
I got to really see some of
these huge benefits that
are just awesome.
as well as we know some
significant challenges in that domain.
And so for me,
I think that's really what
sparked the interest in it.
Moving beyond that,
we've really got to discuss
this a lot in our residency
program here at the VA,
talking about how learners, you know,
they don't learn the same
way they used to.
And as we progress the way we teach things,
we have to appreciate the
different understanding and
leverage of some of these
social media platforms for
learning and things like that.
And I think as I've seen
that in our classes of
residents and even students
coming through the clinic,
it really has emphasized to me, yes,
this is something that's interesting,
but it's also very
important for us to jump on
board and make sure we
utilize this stuff and
understand this stuff for
the future learners, for the future PTs.
Absolutely.
So analog youth, digital adulthood.
So you're not a dinosaur.
You have an appreciation for both sides,
which is great.
I resonate with that.
So just so people know that
I am not a millennial, close but not.
And so I appreciate that.
I think that that gives you
a really unique perspective
that you can appreciate
where students are nowadays
with all the information
and the processing and digesting.
but you will have a
different kind of awareness
to it because you didn't
really grow up during that
time where they were having
all of those challenges how
much to process right so
now we're in this I would
say this different age
right so not only do you
have so much to process but
you have to check the
stories you have to credit
check we have to figure out
what is truthful versus
maybe self-promotion you
know and I think the old words
used to be gurus, right?
Like somebody just had a
facet or a style that they promoted,
but it wasn't really always
evidence-based.
And I certainly can see that
even occurring in a social media,
but with a larger audience
now between YouTube and
some of the social media platforms,
such as Facebook, Instagram, I mean,
there's all different types.
I mean, we can get into the, you know,
the even younger days now,
how some of those
individuals are connecting, but
I would love to hear some of
your positive experiences
that you've experienced, maybe,
or heard through social
media in our community, healthcare,
physical therapy, or specific to OMPT.
And then we'll talk about some pitfalls,
but let's focus.
What have been the positives
that you have seen when
using social media?
Yeah, thank you, Megan.
I think there's a lot there.
I mean, you see it every day.
You know, if you're active on social media,
you see this collaboration
and reach every single day.
To me,
that's really the biggest benefit of
social media overall is
this idea that you're able
to get information to and from, you know,
far reaches of the
publications and all those things.
There's so many journals
that are publishing
relevant information to us.
There's no way as a researcher,
you're able to keep up with
all that stuff.
But if you find some other
researchers that follow
similar interests to you,
you have other people
siphoning through some of
that and feeding some of that to you.
And so it's really
beneficial to see some of
this information.
Furthermore, though, like I said,
that collaboration,
really being able to not
only read an article,
but ask questions about it or, you know,
talk directly with the author about this.
These aren't things you could do twenty,
thirty years ago.
I mean, even in the time of, yes,
we had email, yes,
there were corresponding
authors listed on emails,
a lot of times people
didn't want to ask them simple questions.
You didn't want to just ask them, hey,
what are your thoughts on this?
Those were things that
you're comfortable asking
in kind of an informal
social media question,
but it's not something you
would write an email to a
world renowned researcher on typically.
And so I think it really
opens the door for this
connection with the authors,
which is great.
And my personal experience with this,
you know,
I have a good example of this
that actually happened
occurred with me earlier
this year is I saw on Twitter,
saw on there were now X formally,
I should say,
saw an X that Nathan Hooding
posted a little thing that
he was coming to the Ohio
State Conference.
Now,
I had no intention of going to the
Ohio State Conference at
the time because I just had
too much stuff going on.
And it was right around my birthday.
But regardless,
I saw that he was coming to Ohio.
And I said, this guy's a big deal.
I love his work.
You know, why is he coming to Ohio?
Hey, no one goes to Ohio, right?
But I said, he's coming to Ohio.
So I reached out to Ken Learman,
another Ohioan, a fellow Ohioan.
I said, Ken, get in the car.
We're going to Columbus.
We're going to go to this conference.
And we ended up going to
this conference in Columbus, Ohio,
which we actually ran into yours truly,
Megan Battles, at that conference.
And we went just for Nathan's talk.
And it was really
interesting because we went
in the morning.
We're sitting there eating breakfast.
And I had seen his pictures, again,
only because of social media.
There's Nathan standing over
in the corner just eating breakfast,
kind of hanging out, looking around.
And so I went over there.
I said, are you Nathan?
Yeah.
He's like, yeah.
And so we got to chatting
and it was great because we
ended up going to his talk.
We ended up having lunch with them.
And then this led to the idea of, hey,
we should write a paper together.
And then we did.
We collaborated.
We wrote one paper together,
which has been published in
JSPT Open on person
centered manual therapy.
And we actually have another
one in peer review on social media.
And so it's really this
collaboration would have
never happened if it wasn't
for that social media.
You know,
me seeing that he happened to be
presenting
at the state conference.
And the funny thing about
that is when I asked him
why he was at the Ohio State Conference,
he just said, I don't know,
it seemed like Ohio was a
cool place to check out.
You have no other reason to be.
Ohio is a cool place to check out.
That's right.
It is.
Oh, that's great.
Well, and I and I appreciate that,
you know,
and I think what's nice now is
like on social media,
you can follow people.
And again, it hits your feed, right?
It hits the you have the
opportunity to not have to
work hard to keep up if you
want to follow researchers
or see what they share.
Right.
So, again, infographics.
those didn't exist years ago,
widely shared now that
helps you to really
translate what you're seeing in research,
how it translates to practice.
And so,
so much of this is good information
sharing when done well.
And I think that that's what
you're expressing is you
get to touch base with
researchers who are living that.
And I would even say
clinicians who are really
presenting and doing the
things that highlight the
hard work and growth that
they have built as a professional and
What a unique way to
collaborate and then
connect even in person.
So hybrid is one of my
favorite conversations for another day.
But in person and then
virtual and then it comes
together in a really great,
great collaboration.
So what a great positive
success story for a good use of that.
So now I want to change
directions a little bit,
and I certainly think you
could probably speak to this as well.
But what are some of the
challenges or common
pitfalls that you or others
have faced while navigating
social media in this space,
maybe as a researcher, highly recognized,
or maybe just as a
clinician navigating it?
Yeah,
this is a challenging topic because I
think that there's, you know,
the common term that always
comes up is misinformation,
misinformation, disinformation.
I think we all know that
there's a lot of stuff out
there that's just total and utter BS,
right?
We know that there's a lot
of stuff out there that's
just not accurate.
The challenge isn't even
from this information just
being out there.
Yes, that's a problem, right?
But we know that that's
something that can be addressed.
The challenge comes from all
the stuff that surrounds
the misinformation to me.
And one of these things is
the way that it's often presented.
Right.
A lot of times this
misinformation comes from
sources that have a lot of
time to designate to this.
OK, I'm a full time clinician.
All my research is on my own time.
You know, everyone in this area of study,
you know,
that's highly involved in own PT.
has a lot of things they're involved in,
whether it's teaching, research, you know,
they have all of these
really important things
where typically social
media is kind of a side
thing they do when they log
in when they can,
where when you see a lot of
these individuals that are
posting just utter BS,
the real misinformation
stuff that we all can look at and say,
this is misinformation.
they're individuals where
this is their thing they
don't have all of these
other things they're doing
to to occupy their time
they have a lot of time to
invest in this and it's a
really unfortunate for
people like us because we
log in you know to some of
these social media
platforms a couple times a
day maybe for short periods
of time while we're doing
something else whereas
these individuals might be
sitting in front of that
computer screen all day and
with that it makes it
challenging because they're
firing this stuff non-stop
And they're able to continue
to just try to support
their own thoughts and
beliefs and some of these biases.
And it makes it really challenging.
On top of that,
there's the way that
they're able to communicate, right?
I work for the United States government.
Most people that work in
different OMPT settings
work for high-level
institutions or different
academic institutions.
They can't go on social media and just
curse and, you know,
discuss things in an inappropriate way.
And so they have to be
careful about how they're
presenting this information.
And that's a challenge when
you have individuals who
might not have those same, you know,
handcuffs to them that
might be able to just speak
more frequently on things
and get a little bit more
aggressive with things.
And so it's really
challenging because you see
some of these individuals
that present this very
typical narcissistic type
of communication.
And they've done a couple of
studies on this to show
that they present this.
A lot of times this social
media personalities present
this narcissistic type of
information and way of
communicating on things
that people in professional
academic settings
won't put up with.
They'll just remove themselves from that.
So now we're in a situation
where we have these
individuals who are posting
this misinformation,
who are presenting more of
it because they have the tie,
and then presenting it in
more aggressive ways
because they don't have
these same kind of ethical
constraints limiting what
they're able to say.
And so it floods things a bit.
And so it really does make
things challenging for us
as consumers of that
information to kind of siphon through.
Absolutely.
And it becomes polarizing, right?
Do you engage in that?
Do you, do you give feedback back to,
you know,
that individual and most likely
not at times, right?
Unfortunately,
that's usually when people withdraw.
And so then the individuals
have even bigger platform
because there's no pushback.
And so we have seen this, right?
And I would say, I mean,
for those who are listening,
manual therapy has swung the pendulum.
over a short period of time,
whether you use it or don't use it.
And I think you can see this
is a testimony to some of
the social media platforms
and big individuals who
feel like that that's a
platform that they want to speak towards.
And so I hear some of the challenges,
but definitely the
misinformation or
disinformation is something
that I believe our next
generation of practitioners
have to navigate through
because it makes it really
hard to know what's truthful, right?
I mean, we see this in our TVs every night,
what's truthful, what's not.
And it's so hard to kind of
navigate that balance, especially
a younger version of
yourself who's just now
coming into the PT profession,
trying to digest as much as
you can so you can give
your best patient care.
Navigating it is really hard.
So I appreciate that.
It's hard.
It's so hard.
So that takes me to our next
spot where I wanted to ask
you with all of the amount
of information that's online,
how do you suggest that
OMPT practitioners,
those who are listening in our audience,
stay evidence-based and try
to avoid some of this
misinformation that we're talking about?
Yeah, thank you for that,
because I think that's important.
You know,
we're going to get this information.
It's how do you how do you
kind of siphon through this?
And I think one of the
things I really like to
have some of our residents
and some young learners
reflect on for everything,
but including the social
media stuff is why do they feel that way?
What is the other side of this?
Right.
We all see things through
our own personal biases, which is OK.
You can't get rid of those.
Right.
But it's important when you
look at these things to say,
why do you think that this
person sees things this way?
So you can see maybe some of
the rationale they have
behind some of these things.
And it's really interesting
because a lot of times when you do that,
you're able to dive into
some of their tactics and
things along those lines
just by assessing that kind
of other side of the coin.
Yes, this is how I see things.
I see this as total BS.
They're presenting this way, but why?
What is the rationale behind that?
And I think a lot of times
you can get that by looking
at the source itself.
And that's why I wrote that
JOSBT blog you were talking about,
that credible or questionable,
that's where that came from,
is looking at this,
assessing the source this is coming from.
And one of the things I did
for that is put together
this little algorithm,
which was kind of comical,
but it's this idea of you
get this information presented to you.
You have to establish where
this is coming from.
Now, is this person a content expert,
right?
Because if the information,
if this is just an article
that's presented to you and
somebody says interesting
read and puts it on social media, right,
they're opening it up for
your interpretation.
That's great.
I would say at that point,
they're still allowing you
to assess that evidence at
its level of evidence based
on the study design.
As soon as that person puts
a twist on that or spin on that saying,
this article is total BS
because it doesn't agree with blah, blah,
blah,
or they did this the wrong way because A,
B, C,
D. As soon as they provide that
twist on that,
that regresses that a bit
to expert opinion.
And even then, we have to ask ourselves,
is this person an expert?
Because anyone who's
published knows you have an
editor and a couple of peer
reviewers who are looking
at your study before
they're published who are actual experts.
So you have people who are very,
very qualified,
who have already looked at
these studies in most cases.
to review them to see to
make sure it is you know
done in a appropriate way
and so then you get to a
point of an expert or maybe
it is a real expert
offering the opinion then
you have to assess
does this person have any
conflict of interest, right?
We, as authors, we have to disclose that.
When I submit a paper, big, you know,
big disclosure.
Are there any conflicts of interest?
Are you making any money by
this opinion you're presenting?
That's not present in social media.
And so it makes things challenging, right?
Because you have individuals
that that is their livelihood.
right you have to ask
yourself is this person you
know relevant and that's
why people follow them on
social media or is this
person only relevant
because of their social
media and unfortunately we
have a lot of these folks
that are only relevant in
the profession because of
what their these
personalities they've
created on social media and
so you take this and if you
say this person maybe is selling courses
is selling products and a
lot of times it's obvious
you'll see this this
doesn't agree with you know
ABCD OMPT is not
evidence-based there's no
reason you should you
should receive training in
it by the way here are some
courses I'm doing you know
follow me on Instagram
follow me on Twitter right
and so it's usually
followed up with something
that leads to direct financial gain
OK, but they don't have to disclose that.
But a lot of times you're
able to work through and kind of see that,
you know,
see that conflicts of interest
that they have on top of that,
really diving into the references.
And that's what I really
like to promote individuals
going on social media.
Yes, if somebody shares this article,
you can glance at their opinion,
but read that article yourself.
You know, it's like abstracts in studies.
They've done they've done reviews on this.
Right.
And what have we found is
that individuals are able
to spin abstracts even to
make them sound like what
supports their beliefs.
And so do you think people
on social media can do
similar things by spinning
their idea of what the results show?
Yeah.
So read it, read it yourself, pull it up,
look at it, you know, send it,
send the email or a message
to the author.
If you have questions,
don't just listen to
somebody else's opinion.
Well,
and I love the algorithm in your paper.
So I will say I'm a little
bit of a geek self-proclaimed,
so you can say it back to
me and it's totally okay.
But I really appreciate the
way that this article kind
of breaks that down.
And I think, you know,
I always think about flow charts.
I like structure,
so that's not lost on people who know me,
but I like a way that helps
somebody navigate through a
lot of information and a process helps.
And I think that algorithm
is really helpful where, you know,
I would say a flow chart, right?
It's guiding you through
asking you to ask yourself questions,
a reflective opportunity to say,
where is the information coming from?
How do they gain and benefit from it?
And, you know, when you're stepping back,
what ways can you either
prove or validate that information?
And
And again,
I think you're spot on having
opportunities in really positive ways,
like having you on this
show and having some of our podcasts.
You know,
we hope to be able to highlight
that these individuals not only write it,
they believe it,
but then they show the
research right about what
they're doing and how
they're furthering study.
And I love the fact that we
start with questions, not with a bias.
We start with questions and it's often.
we undo our bias, right?
Like, oh,
I didn't know that was going to happen.
That's the best part about
some of the research that's come out.
So again,
I appreciate kind of your
thoughts to driving our new
clinicians in a way to kind
of handle some of the
misinformation and
definitely the vast amount
of information that's out there.
So that is awesome.
So I'm going to change gears again.
And instead of talking about clinicians,
I want to talk about how can we start to
connect our community and our patients.
So we are talking about
having students navigate this,
but what about patients who
are just starting to like, you know,
they have no contacts.
They don't have this
resource that lets you dive
in and navigate in the same way.
So what learning lessons do
you have there from using
social media to connect
with health professionals
in the community outside of
our own scope?
And then what about patients?
yeah I think I think
assessment of health
literacy is very important
obviously you know you get
these individuals whether
it's you know different
health professions or you
know individuals at
different um you know
different levels of
education as far as
patients go and they're all
at different levels and so
you know I like
I like sharing information
with these individuals,
but it makes it very
challenging because we know
that when it comes to
concepts like pain neuroscience education,
some of these things,
it needs to be catered for
the individual in front of you.
And so that's one of the big
challenges in social media
is a lot of times it's
catered for the average.
And I think a good example
of this is how this
information can be
presented in a way that's
really not optimal for us.
I'm assuming a lot of
individuals have seen how
Stuart McGill did a recent
Huberman podcast.
And I love Stuart's work,
and I think he's done some
great things for our profession.
But a lot of his concepts
are a bit outdated from
what we understand about
low back pain specifically.
And I think we all saw that.
And we, in this,
this large geared at largely at patients,
this, you know,
large podcast type of thing he did.
And it,
it really highlighted some of the
things you don't want to do,
which you don't want to
present things in a way
that creates any type of nocebo based,
you know, fear of movement and, you know,
this idea of anatomical pathological,
you know,
terrible things causing these
pain complaints and all of
these things that are just
outdated models and.
On the counter side of things,
Peter O'Sullivan did a
recent podcast on the same exact topic,
which was the polar opposite,
which was really geared
towards what we do understand about pain,
what we do understand about
how you treat it and how
you manage it in these things.
Again,
geared a little bit towards patients
as well as towards clinicians,
but in a way that really highlights the
the variability in it.
And it's not that
something's out of place or
not that this muscle is weak or the,
cause that's, you know,
maybe for one individual patient,
that might be a problem,
but to paint that across every patient,
it's a huge challenge.
And so I think that that's
from educating patient standpoint,
I think that's the
challenge is how do I
educate these individuals individually?
you know,
in a way that's beneficial to
them based on their specific needs.
And so I, to be honest with you,
I don't use social media as
much for patient type of, you know,
information or education
for that reason is because
I think it's it's from a
person centered care standpoint.
How do you make it individualized?
Right.
You know, and so I don't do that as much,
but I think it's important.
I just I haven't gotten
involved in much into in
that realm of things.
Well, and it's super tricky.
And I can tell you that even
with your websites,
you have to be so
thoughtful about what words
you're putting out there
and how you're leading
people and what you're linking them to.
But even just keeping them up to date,
it makes it really difficult.
So I continue to challenge
people to think about, you know,
if an end in mind is
patient-centered care,
what resources are we
providing to that end body,
that end group,
and really being strategic
about the way we interact
with them throughout these
social media platforms.
in thoughtful,
intentional ways without
trying to steer them or misguide them.
It really should be what is
in the best intention,
which is to hopefully get
them to the right care, right?
And get them the best outcome.
So, you know,
I think people always have two sides,
just like you said, Stuart McGill,
and then you turn around
and you think Peter O'Sullivan,
but those are two different
philosophical approaches.
Maybe one's right.
Maybe one's wrong.
Maybe both are right.
Maybe both are wrong.
I don't know that we know,
but we certainly can at
least explore philosophies
and they're not out there
trying to get that self gain.
They are seeking
and researching and doing
some of this work.
And you certainly can
connect with those
individuals to talk with
them about their studies
and the work they're doing.
Right.
So I think the other pieces,
and you kind of hit this a little bit,
but you know,
these individuals that you
were just speaking about in
the Hooverman lab is
definitely a healthcare professional who,
you know, he has a personal brand.
I mean, they have a personal brand.
And so how do you,
as a healthcare provider, you know,
use social media.
build transparency and
integrity while you're
still trying to promote
what you're doing.
I think this is a tricky space.
And what advice would you
give to other professionals
trying to navigate it?
Yeah, I think I think first and foremost,
know your worth and know your value.
And I think that we a lot of
times we take for granted
how much patients and other
people listen to us.
And so especially what is
what is the term doctor mean to people?
Right.
And my wife likes to remind
me frequently after I have
two doctorate degrees,
like to remind me
frequently that Dr. Seuss
is also a doctor.
you know but at the end of
the day if you put if you
have doctor in front of
your name on a social media
platform or something along
those lines keep in mind
patients aren't able to
decide or other people may
not be able to decide what
your doctorate is in or
what area you study so know
your area of expertise
speak to your area of
expertise and defend it
when you know the material
but at the same time be
careful stepping out of
that okay because you
reading you know I'm not
going to read do a
literature review on on the
treatment of diabetes and
go try to you know educate
people on diabetes using
doctor in front of my name tomorrow
That's not my area of specialty.
I haven't done research there.
I haven't done anything there.
And so that doctor title
still carries you.
And I think a lot of times
people on social media,
you'll see it where they'll
use doctor and all of these initials.
And keep in mind that
patients or other providers
might not know the
relevance of those things.
They might see the whole ABC
soup there and think that
this person is an expert in everything.
This is a person that should
be giving me advice on what
vitamins to take.
when that individual might
have no training in that
area of expertise and so I
think knowing your value
both the positives what you
do have to offer and the
negatives the areas that
you probably shouldn't be
speaking to right and I
think that that's that's
really an important thing
to keep in mind the other
thing is following ethical
standards again we don't
have conflicts of interest
in social media I don't
have to sit there and tell
people oh by the way you
know I'm making money off
of this but simply put
you should do what's right, right?
You should do what's right
because you know that it's
not right to try to trick
people and give them bad information,
right?
If we know that manual
therapy is shown to lead to
improved downstream outcomes,
decreased healthcare costs,
decreased opiate utilization downstream,
all of these things,
and you're sitting here saying, you know,
you shouldn't use manual therapy.
No one should be trained in it.
You shouldn't educate...
You providing that
information are going to
negatively impact patients
down the road because of that,
because of that trickle
down effect of what you're
telling some of these providers.
So you have to do the right
thing and think about is
this information that I'm
providing really the best we know,
really what's best for
these providers to hear and
for their patients to, you know,
downstream to be influenced by.
Or are they what's best for
me and my own financial
loving and perhaps patting
myself on my back for my own biases?
And so, you know,
I think really appreciating
that is important.
Providing your sources,
making sure you give people
the ability to look things up themselves.
Again, give them that opportunity.
Don't try to tell people how
they should feel about things, okay?
Give them the opportunity to say,
this is an article, interesting review.
Here's my thoughts on it.
Let me know what you think.
Right.
Open that door for them to
dive deeper into some of this stuff.
Don't be afraid to admit
when you're wrong.
One of the things I love
telling people is challenge your biases.
We all have them.
You cannot make them go away.
Be aware of them,
become friends with them
and challenge them.
Okay.
If you find a paper that
doesn't agree with what you think,
look at it and say,
what did they do here?
And is it them that did
something wrong in this
study that I don't agree with?
Or do I need to change the
way I'm looking at this?
Because again,
there's different opinions on things.
Just like you were saying, Megan,
there's this idea of it's
just different philosophies
looking at things oftentimes.
And so oftentimes it's not a
right or wrong.
It's just different sides of
the coin looking at things
in a different way.
And then opening your mind
to things outside your comfort zone.
Being able to dive into some
of this stuff and just
learn a little bit every day.
I always tell our residents this.
Every day,
we're either getting a little
bit smarter or a little bit stupid.
You have to learn some new stuff.
You have to open your mind to say,
I don't just want to keep
reinforcing what I already know.
I actually want to learn some new stuff.
I want to dive into some new
stuff and investigate some
other people's thoughts on these things.
Well,
and I think what you allude to in
that is that research is hard.
I think research is so hard.
And when you see different philosophies,
people may not be bantering
about somebody else's approach,
but rather maybe they had a
different subset of
patients in that experience.
Maybe they had more females,
maybe they had more males,
maybe had a different ethnicity,
maybe they have a higher chronicity.
I mean,
there's so many variables that go
into research
that I feel like that's why
it gives it more merit
rather than it being a
myopic singular approach.
It allows you to think a
little bit more open and
broad and I love that.
I've also seen in Twitter which you can,
sorry, X,
is that you see somebody will
say that and then they'll
do a thread with another
link or resource and
another link or resource.
I love seeing that because
it keeps you as a follower or reader.
I'm hearing what they're
saying and then they
provide me another link or
resource to go to because X is limited,
Y characters.
You can't put all your
information in there.
It certainly is a way of a good tactic,
I would say,
to try to make sure that
you're being as transparent as possible.
I found that to be really
helpful as a user.
um I I'm not as on uh
predominantly on x um but
you know certainly I like
to follow a few people so I
hear you there that's great
well is there any other
advice you have as we wrap
up the show if not I'll go
ahead and kick us into some closing
No, I mean, again,
I just thank you for having me on.
We are actually doing a talk.
You, me,
and Chad Cook are doing a talk on
this topic at AM.
So anyone at the conference,
please come see us.
We did a really interesting
narrative review on social
media content related to
musculoskeletal rehab.
And so it's currently in peer review.
We're really excited for the
results of it.
We're looking forward to
discussing some of those
with you guys at AM.
Otherwise, thank you for having me.
Oh, Damian, always a pleasure.
And sincerely,
we can't wait to have you at conference.
I can't wait to see all of
our listeners who are able to go to.
And, you know,
this pretty much wraps us up
in our insightful
conversation on social media.
And I have to say thank you, Damian,
for sharing your expertise with us,
your wisdom.
and how we navigate social media,
especially as OMPT practitioners,
thinking about the variety
of audiences that we need to.
And although we know it
offers tremendous opportunity, engagement,
growth, and communication,
it's so important to
approach it with care, transparency,
and that solid ethical
foundation like you were mentioning.
So I hope this, for those listeners,
I hope this episode has
given you some food for thought,
how to use social media
effectively and responsibly
in their professional journey,
especially maybe as new,
younger clinicians.
Don't forget to follow AMT
on our social media channels.
Of course,
I have to say that because we obviously,
they're listening to a podcast.
So we hope that you'll find
that we're bringing fresh ideas,
that we're going to
challenge our assumptions
and always try to move AONT
forward in the right
direction to do the right
thing for our patients.
So thank you, Damian, for your time.
And as our audience,
we'll see you later on the next Hands On,
Hands Off.