Blogging during IPNA meeting: Reaching out to fellows at home

Sir,

As pediatric nephrologists, there is a growing need for us to adopt new tools for E-learning because science is a constantly changing field. Blogs are interactive websites that consist of regular diary-like entries. Unlike traditional web pages, blogs are dynamic and permit the bloggers to engage in “one to many” conversations with the readers.[1] Nowadays, more physicians have begun to recognize the potential for using social media for undergraduate and post graduate teaching. One study showed that over 90% of medical students in the United Kingdom were using social networking sites and blogs as part of their daily lives.[2]

Physician bloggers can share important points of each meeting with their audience and help disseminate the most recent concepts and paradigms in nephrology to the larger community. Blogs that did this in the year 2010 were: Pediatric Nephrology (https://www.pediatric-nephrology.com); Nephrology On-Demand (http://www.nephrologyondemand.org); Nephron Power (http://www.nephronpower.com); and The Online Transplant Center (http://www.onlinetransplantcenter.blogspot.com).[3]

During the current International Pediatric Nephrology Association (IPNA) Meeting at New York (August 29-September 2, 2010), Pediatric Nephrology website (https://www.pediatric-nephrology.com) blogged about the day-to-day experiences of the meeting. Short teaching oriented blog entries were entered on topics presented at the conferences to share with the fellows and physicians who could not make it to the conference. Some of the posters were also posted at the website (https://pediatric-nephrology.com/index.php?view=entry&year=2010&month=09&day=12&id=290%3Apgrxi&option=com_lyftenbloggie&Itemid=27). The Pediatric Renal Grand Rounds Volume XI was a focus on IPNA Meeting, and has a synopsis of all the events and posters (https://pediatric-nephrology.com/index.php?view=entry&year=2010&month=09&day=03&id=274%3Aindiaipna&option=com_lyftenbloggie&Itemid=27). The concept of Pediatric Renal Grand Rounds has been published previously.[4] During the fortnight of posting, the Pediatric Nephrology website registered 1600 visits and 59,413 hits and 840 unique new visitors. The maximum visitors were from USA and India.

The posts on the IPNA meeting were appreciated by fellows and consultants who could not attend the meeting. It helped them to learn about the new developments in the field, even though they were not present at the meeting. They could interact with the attendees and get their doubts cleared about the new topics being discussed at the meeting.

Integration of the new technologies like blogs, Wikis and Twitter offers a way to enhance learning experiences, and deepen the levels of learner's engagement and collaboration within digital learning environments.[156]