For many years, this section was a space for readers’ feedback to a particular issue, or story. It is still that, and will continue to be so long as the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail.
But there’s another world in which stories receive attention and feedback: online. And while Yale Medicine Magazine’s physical circulation is around 22,500, online it receives around 25,000 unique visits per month.
Editing Yale Medicine Magazine is my primary responsibility, and both a joy and a privilege. I have a second job, though, which I created for myself: I plan, manage, and run Yale School of Medicine (YSM)’s social media accounts. As readers are likely aware, social media is a proving-ground for ideas both small and great, and the social and scientific assertions and hypotheses of YSM faculty and researchers are no exception to that rule.
In the coming issues, we would like to offer up examples of conversations that happened online, that in the past may have made their way into this section via the postal service. These include posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram that the public found to be interesting or noteworthy. Or ideas that were sufficiently resonant to capture my attention.
The three posts for this issue that stood out were, first, that announcing Nancy Brown’s assumption of the deanship—our most read, shared, and commented-on post on LinkedIn of all time. The commentary was universally celebratory and positive in tone. Second, a post by Yale Orthopaedics commemorating International Women’s Day with a callout to Rosie the Riveter. Third and finally, a post by Interventional Radiology technicians in the Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging was shared by CNN’s Instagram page, where it received nearly a quarter of a million likes—a bit more than our more modest totals.
Many other subjects find air on social media. These were the three that jumped out from within YSM’s community. To hop onboard a social media conversation, look us up online.