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Essay / Media Impact on Social Media - 1559
Health care is increasingly interconnected with social media. The Internet has become the main source of information for most patients. If a person gets sick or develops symptoms, they can search the internet for those symptoms and get some sort of treatment. People search for everything on the Internet; nearby doctors, surgical procedures, medications and their effects, etc. People can share different healthcare information, such as reviews of hospitals, doctors, urgent care facilities, share their experiences with illnesses and which treatment worked best. Individuals can also use social media to ask for advice or search for information on the go. This is an important part of social media because some people may not have enough time to go to the doctor. This impacts both consumers and healthcare in general. Social media impacts healthcare providers by raising awareness about nursing and advocating for nurses. “There are many negative images of nursing in the media, from highly sexualized depictions of nurses to healthcare systems in which nurses are invisible” (Jackson & Mitchell, 2015). The Ottawa Hospital has created live nursing tweets called “Day in the Life” that help represent the lives of nurses. Tweets include a real day on the job as a nurse, chronicling their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, their compassion, and their nursing skills (Jackson & Mitchell,