Rallying Oncologists (M. Fisch)

1. Rallying Oncologists to Social Media
for Clinical Trials
Michael J. Fisch, MD, MPH
@fischmd
June 7, 2018

2. Disclosures
AIM Specialty Health®
• Subsidiary of Anthem, Inc.
• Employment (full-time)
MD Anderson Cancer Center
• Clinical specialist (part-time)
• Previously on faculty for 15 years
NCI Network group affiliations
• SWOG (current)
• ECOG-ACRIN (previous)

3. Key Messages
• Twitter is currently the major social platform for
MDs to engage the public and each other
• Many different categories of content on Twitter
can influence clinical trials
• Rallying other MDs to Twitter to help with
education and ultimately enrollment on clinical
trials has not been easy or highly successful
so far…

5. Five Reasons for Oncologists to Use Twitter
1. To find information
2. To amplify good information
3. To be found and seen
4. To actively create tweets to share
information
5. To actively engage with others

6. Conceptual Model of Clinical
Trial Accrual

7. ASCO Annual Meeting 2011

8. Research Concerns
• Descriptions of ongoing trials could be considered
inducement to research
• No OHRP or FDA guidance exists regarding social media

9. SWOG CCOP Research Base
Grant Renewal 2012
Specific aim: To use blogs and microblogs
(via Twitter) to promote clinical trial accrual
in SWOG and also to promote the science of
oncology and the value of research-driven
patient care among our community oncology
sites, academic cancer center faculty and
fellows, other academic centers, and the lay
public.

10. Michael J. Fisch, MD MPH
The University of Texas MD Anderson
Cancer Center
SWOG Plenary: May 4, 2013

11. Bottom Line
 The more SWOG members who tweet
 the more we will learn from each other
understand the perspectives of patients and
caregivers
influence cancer care and science for the better
through our clinical trials

12. Next Steps
 Sign up on twitter
 Send a tweet to SWOG
@SWOG, let’s engage! #swogonc
 Social Media WG
@fischmd count me in for @SWOG SM
Let Er Rip!!
@SWOGChair

14. Why aren’t you doing more SM?
 You are crazy busy
 Seems like a narcissistic indulgence
 You’ve seen some bad things can happen
 Haven’t seen anything that great on SM
 Nobody showed you how to get started
 Had a bad experience with it and quit

16. Ideas Moving Forward
• More local institutional
encouragement and support
• Critical mass of local
mentors
• Crawl/Walk/Run
 Teach oncologists to
extract information
from Twitter without
having to agree to
tweet (or even sign up)

17. Key Messages
• Twitter is currently the major social
platform for MDs to engage the public and
each other
• Many different categories of content on
Twitter can influence clinical trials
• Rallying other MDs to Twitter to help with
education and ultimately enrollment on
clinical trials has not been easy or highly
successful so far…but that may change