Circulation December 28, 2021 Special

In this week’s edition of Circulation on the Run, Dr.
Amit Khera introduces the new Social Media Editors to our
Circulation listeners. Please welcome Dr. Vanessa Blumer, Dr.
Pishoy Gouda, Dr. Xiaoming (Ming) Jia, Dr. Peder Langeland Myhre,
and Dr. Sonia Shah to Circulation.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast summary
and backstage pass to the journal and its editors. I'm Amit
Khera, Associate Editor from UT Southwestern Medical Center in
Dallas, and Digital Strategies' Editor for Circulation. And today
I have the privilege of sitting in for your usual host, Dr.
Carolyn Lam, and Dr. Greg Hundley. Well, two times a year, we
really have a special issue, there's no print issue for
Circulation in the summer and here in that holiday time. So,
fortunately, we get to use this for really whatever we want to
do.


Dr. Amit Khera:


And today we have a very special issue. A few months ago, we
transitioned over from a prior social media editor team that was
Jainy Savla Dan Ambinder, and Jeffrey Hsu. We were able to
recruit a fantastic group of new social media editors. You
probably have seen their work behind the scenes, but you've not
gotten to meet them personally. So, today I have the privilege of
introducing you to our new social media editors. This group of
five, that's been working for several months and we get to know
them a little bit. Get to hear a little bit about their
perspective on social media from fellows in training, and also
what they've learned so far in their few months in working with
Circulation. So, I'm going to go one by one and introduce you.
And first I want to introduce you to Dr. Vanessa Blumer. Vanessa,
tell us a little bit about yourself.


Dr. Vanessa Blumer:


Thank you so much, Dr. Khera, it is such an honor to be here. And
I've had so much fun the months that I've been working for
Circulation, it's truly just a privilege to work alongside this
talented group. So I'm Vanessa Blumer. I am originally from
Caracas, Venezuela, born and raised there, did all of my medical
training back home. That included medical school, a year of rural
service, or rural medicine. Then I actually did residency
training in Venezuela as well. It wasn't really in my plans
straight away to come to the US, but a little bit due to the
political situation that we all know that Venezuela's going or
suffering, I decided to come to the US.


Dr. Vanessa Blumer:


I did residency in the University of Miami, Jackson Memorial
hospital, which I loved. Stayed there for a chief year. And then
after that came to Duke University to do cardiology fellowship.
I'm currently a third year cardiology fellow at Duke, doing a
year of research at the DCRI, which I am enjoying a lot, and will
be doing heart failure next year. I will be going to Cleveland
Clinic for a year of advanced heart failure.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, you've had quite a journey, Vanessa, and congratulations, I
think your match was relatively recently. So, we're excited to
see where your career takes you from here and appreciate your
contribution so far. Now I'm going to introduce you to Pishoy
Gouda. Pishoy Tell us a little bit about yourself.


 


 


Dr. Pishoy Gouda:


Morning, Dr. Khera. My name is Pishoy. I have had the privilege
of doing my medical trading all over the world. I was born here
in Toronto and moved to Edmonton where I mostly grew up. Since
then, I traveled to Galway Ireland where I spent six years to do
my undergraduate medical training. Hopped over a short flight and
did my Masters in Clinical Trials in the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine before returning to Canada to start my
residency training. Got to work with some amazing people in
Calgary while I completed my internal medicine training, and then
finally returned home to Edmonton where I am in the last few
months of my adult cardiology training.


Dr. Pishoy Gouda:


Next year, I'm really excited to start my interventional
cardiology training, which is going to be really exciting. Some
of my interests, working with social media, wearable technology
so working with this great group has been really awesome.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Thank you Pishoy. Obviously lots of travels from you as well, and
we definitely appreciate your expertise and interest in social
media and in technology. It's been very valuable. Next someone
who's closer to my backyard. Ming Jia. Ming, welcome.


Dr. Xiaoming (Ming) Jia:


Hello from Houston, and thank you Dr. Khera. So, it's been a
great opportunity to be involved as a social media editor for
Circulation. So I'm a current cardiology fellow at Baylor College
of medicine in Houston, Texas. Was originally born in China, and
grew up in sunny Florida. I did my medical training in Florida as
well, and then moved over to Houston, Texas for residency, and
now wrapping up my last year in general fellowship. Next year,
I'll be staying in Houston at Baylor for interventional
fellowship. Then, hopefully after that career in interventional
cardiology, but as well as preventional cardiology as well, I
tended to actually interest in both interventional and
preventional cardiology.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Very cool. I know you and I were talking about this right
beforehand, how that nexus of the two fields and just some of
your interest in a lot of the research you've done so far. So
again, offering a unique and different perspective, which we
appreciate so, welcome, Ming. Next, Peder Myhre. Peder, welcome.


Dr. Peder Langeland Myhre:


Thank you so much, Dr. Khera. This is Peder Myhre from Norway,
all the way across the pond. And it's such a great honor to be
part of this podcast, which I've been a big fan since it started
a couple years ago and where Carolyn Lam has been doing with it,
it's been really amazing. And I've actually been promoting it to
everyone I know with any kind of interest in cardiology. My
position in training right now is that I'm in the last year of
cardiology training and I'm also doing a 50% post-doc at the
University of Oslo with Professor Torbjørn Omland as a mentor.
And as a part of my training, I was one year at Harvard
University at Brigham Women's Hospital to do research with
Professor Scott Solomon's group a couple of years ago.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, we appreciate your affinity and now you get to be on the
podcast. That's pretty exciting as well. I should say, each of
you is linked to an outstanding Associate Editor at your home
institution. And so we're glad you have that mentorship as well
there too. And speaking of someone at home institution, someone
who I've known for a very long time, Dr. Sonia Shah. Sonya,
introduce yourself, please.


 


Dr. Sonia Shah:


Thank you, Dr. Khera. No, just to echo what everyone has said
already, it truly has been an honor and a privilege to work with
this awesome team. And it's been a lot of fun along the way. So
I'm Sonia Shah. I'm a third year cardiology fellow at UT
Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. Originally from Central Florida,
actually. And then did my undergrad medical school training in
Chicago and then went out to the West Coast for my residency
training was out at Stanford and now I'm loving being in Dallas.
So it's been a lot of fun. So I particularly have an interest in
women's cardiovascular health and advanced imaging. And so
currently looking for jobs now.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, I can say you've been a star fellow and have a really
incredible and unique skillset. And, so we look forward to seeing
what your career brings and certainly you've brought a lot to our
podcast. And we'll talk more about that in just a bit, since you
are longest standing social media editor currently. Well, I want
to now dig in a little bit and you all again, I want to thank you
for what you've done for the last several months. I certainly
have learned a lot from you. We've had some discussions as a
group about, thoughts about social media and how social media
works.


Dr. Amit Khera:


And so maybe we'll start with the sort of existential question
about, why social media? What is the value for journals, if you
think about Circulation, but really any journal. What does social
media bring? And again, you all have a unique perspective as
largely fellows in training and Vanessa, maybe I'll go back to
you a little bit about, why social media? What's the point of
relevance about all this work that you're doing?


Dr. Vanessa Blumer:


Yeah. Thank you so much, Dr. Khera. I think that's a great
question. And I do think that that's a question that we ask
ourselves every day as we're doing this. I think the way that the
medical literature has been evolving, it's been evolving in a way
of social media and people are consuming more and more social
media daily. I think in my own daily life, I discover articles
that I'm interested in through social media a lot more than I
used to before. And I also discover that I'm interested in
particular articles, the way that they are transmitted in social
media or the way that they're presented in social media.


Dr. Vanessa Blumer:


So I think we're reinventing ourselves and reinventing the way
that we present to the public, the articles that we have in
Circulation, so that people want to read our articles or want to
read the articles that authors are doing such a great job at
putting together. So I think, we are coming up with creative
ideas every day and it's part of what we discuss as a group of
how do we present this so that people want to read the articles
and discover all the hard work that authors are putting together
through different social media platforms. Because we know that
people consume not just one social media platform, but several.
So I think there's huge potential in social media if we use it in
the right way.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Yeah. I think your points well taken. I know we're going to talk
a lot about Twitter today, but as you pointed out, there are
other media as well. That's just in the sort of main, I guess,
currency and in the medical and cardiovascular literature. And
you mentioned value to authors and one thing you mentioned, which
I'll transition a little is about the way things are presented,
help you get interested in them. And so that gets to the art of
the tweet. Something we've talked about a little bit and, there's
a little bit of on the job training, if you will. And we've
talked about is there a gold standard in terms of what makes a
good frankly, a medical journal tweet. Well, Ming, what do you
think? You've been toiling over this for a few months now and
tell us what you think is helpful in a medical journal tweet in
terms of achieving the goals that Vanessa mentioned. Getting an
audience interested in reading these articles is really doing
justice for the authors to transmit their research.


Dr. Xiaoming (Ming) Jia:


Great question, Dr. Khera, and this is something that, as a
social media editor, I'm still learning. So for me, writing a
concise tweet is very important. Trying to get that essence of a
entire study into a very limited number of characters. Obviously
having a great figure that highlights the key findings of a study
is also very important as well. Now at the same time, I think the
most effective posts though, are those that serve as a hook for
the paper. So, while we want are tweet to stand on their own. I
think the most effective tweets helped to entice the audience to
want to read a little bit more and go and read the entire
manuscript. So certainly there is a art and skillset in terms of
writing these effective posts.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Yeah. You certainly bring up some key points, right? So being
concise, one by definition and but two is, there are tweets that
sometimes can go on and on and that comes into using some
interesting hashtags and some shortcuts. But I think your point
about innuendo, enticing, not giving away the whole story, but
just enough to get people to want to read more. And I think that
that is an art.


Dr. Amit Khera:


And I've certainly seen as you all have done this more and more
about how your own writing and tweets have evolved. Pishoy, we've
talked a little bit about, all of you are researchers, you've all
done some great research, about thinking about social media, sort
of a research area. Again, since there's no gold standard about
what's a great tweet, just thinking about it more of a discipline
as we do any other area that we want to explore scientifically.
What are your thoughts about, how do we figure out more, learn
more about what makes a great tweet?


Dr. Pishoy Gouda:


Yeah. Evidence based tweeting is something that I've been
interested in. Everything that we do, we want to make sure that
we do it well and that we do it effectively and the same goes
with social media posts. So what works, what raises interactions
with our content. And that's something that other disciplines and
advertising have been doing all the time and we should be doing
the same as well. If our goal is to increase interactions with
our content, then we want to make sure that we are doing it in
the most evidence based way. And we've learned a few things. We
know that cardiologists and individuals in medicine in general
have been using Twitter much more frequently as a way to consume
in both your medical and research content.


Dr. Pishoy Gouda:


So what makes a post great and what increases its interaction and
the bottom line is we don't really know. We have a few studies
and a few small randomized controlled trials that have been done
that give us some insight. We know that vigor, that tweets that
include images might pull readers to them a little bit more. But
you know what exactly works. We have a lot of observational data,
but we don't have a lot of high quality data that gives us the
answer to this question. So what we've learned so far is use
images, use links. If you can use graphical abstracts, that seems
to help as well. But, it's something that we're continuously
looking at and we're really excited to put together some new
evidence coming up soon in the future.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Evidence based tweeting. I like it. As you and I have discussed,
my predecessor Carolyn Fox had a randomized trail called
Intention-to-Tweet using Circulation and then a follow-up study
to that. So we hope to do also some good high quality research
about social media and what works. Well, that gets to who's your
audience, right? I always like to think about when you start
something, who's your audience. And there could be lots of
people. I think probably our strike zone is researchers,
scientists, clinicians, of course, there's lots of lay
individuals too, that are paying attention on social media. One
thing that's different about Circulation than some other journals
is this melding of basic science and clinical science. Some
journals are all basic science and all clinical science and
Circulation's both.


Dr. Amit Khera:


And I mean, frankly, that's posed an interesting challenge for
this group. None of you are, including myself, are card carrying
basic scientists, if you will. So we've had to translate those
articles. And I would consider that both a challenge, but also an
opportunity because, if we're speaking to a basic science
audience, of course we may have one tone we use, but we want this
basic science. I think that's the purpose of Circulation is basic
science applicable to the clinician and clinical researchers. So,
translating that's been a real opportunity. And Peta, maybe I can
ask you about that opportunity of translating basic science for
clinical researchers and clinicians.


Dr. Peder Langeland Myhre:


Yes. I completely agree. And I've learned so much from this job
as a social media editor to really try to get the essence out of
a basic science paper and the translational outlook for
clinicians. Because all of the papers that are basic science that
at least I came across in Circulation also have a clinical
implication and a translational side of it. And I think when we
read these papers and try to sum it up in one tweet, we want to
keep the most important essentials of the basic science, but also
extend it to clinicians so that they understand in what setting
and what this can potentially mean in the future. So for me,
that's the biggest challenge when we review basic science papers,
but it's also perhaps the part of this job that I learn the most.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Yeah. I agree. I think we're all learning a lot. I've certainly
learned a lot by delving in deeper into the basic science papers
and figuring out how to translate them appropriately. And I think
this really highlights, as you mentioned, what Dr. Hill our
Editor in Chief, his feeling is basic science papers in
Circulation all have to have important clinical implications.
That's the benchmark, if you will. So I think we've seen that
shew in terms of what papers have come across for you all.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, I'm looking now at our longest standing social media
editor, Sonya Shaw, she started a few months before as sort of a
transition because we certainly wanted someone in place that
could help bridge between the old and the new. And Sonya, you've
had a decent amount of experience now with two editorial teams.
Tell us what you've learned so far by working as a social media
editor at Circulation. What are some of the observations you've
had and some of the things you've learned in this space?


Dr. Sonia Shah:


Yeah, certainly. So I think a couple things. I think my ability
to accurately and concisely convey the important key points from
each journal has definitely improved. But I think the other
unique thing, unique perspective that we gain as social media
editors is getting to actually see the behind the scenes workings
of how the journal works and how papers are put together and
accepted. And so I think it's been interesting to see how papers
are being analyzed and the teamwork that's required by the
Associate Editors and the Editors and making sure to do each
paper justice and properly evaluate it. So I think that's been a
really cool experience. It certainly has improved my ability to
write when I try to think of, what are the key points I want to
include. And how to convey information in a way that will be
appealing to journals.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, thank you for that. We take this job very seriously, as you
all have in that point about doing each paper justice, because
you've seen, one, from the author's perspective about how much
work they put in and you've been an author before and want to
make sure that we appropriately appreciate that. And then also
the Associate Editors, there are hours and hours of work for each
paper. So even though it comes out, maybe in a few characters in
a tweet, we appreciate all that's going behind it. And I'm glad
you've gotten to see that process through. Ming, maybe I can come
back to you. What have you learned so far by working in
Circulation for the last few months?


Dr. Xiaoming (Ming) Jia:


I do want to echo what Sonya just said in terms of really getting
a glimpse of the behind the scenes work is quite amazing. The
amount of work and coordination it takes to get a paper from
publication to promotion. And, we don't really get that exposure
as a author for a manuscript or even as a peer reviewer. So, that
part has definitely been a great learning experience. On the
other side, I do find it interesting that ever since taking on
this role as a social media editor, my way of writing has changed
as well. So, trying to be more efficient, getting key points
across and really being concise and focused in my manuscript
writing. So that's been very helpful from a personal level as
well.


Dr. Amit Khera:


We're very thankful for that. I think we always want this to be
bidirectional where you all are contributing in meaningful ways.
But that the goal here with fellows in training in this role,
social media editors. But for you all to be learning something as
well. So I'm glad that that has occurred. And we'll talk more
about that in just a few minutes.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, we have a couple of international social media editors and
this is my intention. We want to make sure we have a diverse
group of social media editors. By background, by thought, by
location. And, one way that the beauty of that is again, we get
different perspectives. I guess the downside is time zones. We
were just joking before, as we were starting this podcast about
some of us are very early in the morning and one of our social
media editors unfortunately is always late at night when we have
our meetings. Peta, tell us a bit about unique observations from
an international perspective. You said you've been following Circ
for a while, but tell us, from your perspective in Europe, the
social media process and how you see it.


Dr. Peder Langeland Myhre:


Thank you so much. And it's actually been a really transformation
for me from before I spent my year in Boston to after. Because I
really learned the potential of using social media and especially
Twitter to stay updated and get the latest papers and thoughts
from experts in the field. And I remember before I went there, I
was often very frustrated that it was so inconvenient to get
across important papers that was within my field of interest.
Because all the journals were not longer sent in paper to our
hospital and the websites were confusing.


Dr. Peder Langeland Myhre:


So when Dr. Vaduganathan at the Brigham & Women's Hospital
introduced me to Twitter, that really was an eye opener for me.
And, ever since that, 90% of the papers that I read I first see
on Twitter. Because that's the first place, the people that are
within my field, publish it or tweet it. And also I'm able to,
you follow a certain amount of scientists and physicians and they
have the same interest as you. So it's also, most of it is
relevant for what I want to read. So it's really been a
revolution for me to start to use Twitter and social media for
medical and scientific purposes. And not only for friends and
family.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Yeah. I think it's some great points. One, is even simplistically
just be able to access articles, which we don't always
appreciate, from people from around the world. And then obviously
what many can, is follow people that have similar interests and
amazing to see sort of how different people consume the
literature. And for you Twitter being your entry point, I guess,
for how you do that, which is I'm sure many, many people do the
same. And we have another international editor you met earlier.
Pishoy, tell us your perspective. And obviously you're in Canada
now and have moved many places. What's your perspective from an
international perspective, looking at social media?


Dr. Pishoy Gouda:


Coming to work at Circulation, I expected a very niche editorial
board, but what I'm really finding out is boy, does it take a
village. And it is people from all over the world. And it really
hits home that collaboration and research has become a global
phenomenon. And to be able to do art well and to appropriately
represent researchers from across the world. We have an editorial
board and team that is global and it really does take a village
to take a paper from submission all the way through the
publication team, starting from the authors to the peer
reviewers, editors. But then the entire post-production team,
which is behind the scenes and don't get a lot of glory, but they
do a lot of the heavy lifting to make sure that, the research
that's submitted gets in front of readers. And that's something
that I hadn't really thought of before. And it's been really
interesting to see how that process unfolds. So that's definitely
been eye opening for me.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, I appreciate what you said about, when it takes a village
and I would be remiss if I don't always call out Augie Rivera,
who is the engine and mastermind behind Circulation, who's
helping us do this podcast today and every week. But the other
part is the international workings I think many may not
appreciate. We have editorial board meetings every other week at
very different time zones on purpose because we have people in
Europe and in Asia and in Africa. And as you know, Dr. Lam who's
the main podcast editor is in Singapore.


Dr. Amit Khera:


So, this is by intention. It really gives us a wonderful
international perspective. And so we're so glad to have you two
as part of our international team. Well, I think that's a great
transition, a little bit to just talking about fellows in
training and involvement in journals for Circulation perspective,
and from the AHA, I should say, getting fellows in training
involved in cardiovascular research, the editorial process, this
is something that's really important to us and something we
continually strive to find new ways to do. So, Vanessa, I'm going
to come back to you. I know, not just at Circulation, but I know
at other journals you've had some responsibilities. Tell us a
little bit of what you tell other fellows in training about
getting involved in journal activities. How to, and what's the
benefit.


Dr. Vanessa Blumer:


Thank you so much Dr. Khera. I think this is such an important
question. First my recommendation is, get involved in one way or
another. I think there's different ways of getting involved as
simple as just start reviewing articles. And the reason I say
this is as I aspire to become an academic, a well-rounded
academic cardiologist, I think my involvement with journals has
just made me a much better researcher, a much better academic
cardiologist. It's made me, I think, Sonya said this so well,
it's made her a better author. It's made me a better writer. So I
think it compliments what you do just so much better. I think
you're better at what you do when you see the behind the scenes
and you understand what happens in scholarly publishing. So I
think there's different ways of getting involved. I know that
Circulation has many and then probably a good way is to reach
out.


Dr. Vanessa Blumer:


I know that people can reach out to us and we can probably guide
them along the way, but different journals have different ways of
getting involved. But I think if you want to start, one way is
start reviewing. You learn a lot through the review process in
itself on how an article is structured. And there's some journal
that have a little bit more of a mentorship approach towards
reviewing. And, that's also a good way starting out. When we
start off as residents, we get some papers get in our inbox to
review and we really don't necessarily know how to approach it.
So maybe a mentorship approach to it is a good way to start. But
overall, I would just say, start getting involved. I think it's a
great experience. Personally, I have learned so much from it and
I think I'm just a better academic cardiologist because of it.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Thank you for that. And I think your point about just find ways
to get involved. And I think our challenge is to continue to
facilitate ways for trainees, fellows in training and others to
get involved. But I think that that first step in finding maybe a
mentor of your institution that could help guide you would be
important. And I'm going to finish with Sonya. I'm going to come
back to you. You've not only had the social media editor window
for quite some time. Being at Circulation, you get to see behind
the curtain perhaps more than others because, Circulation is such
a big part of what we do at UT Southwestern. And, we've had this
Fellow Reviewer Program where you've been able to participate in
reviews and things like that. From your perspective, maybe
telling the fellows in training, listening out there about
getting involved in journal activities, the value that you've
seen and how to do so.


Dr. Sonia Shah:


Yeah, I think that's a really important question. At the end of
the day, the ability to read and interpret and take away the
major conclusions and properly interpret a study is a skill. And
so I think the more you do it, certainly the better you get at
it. And being part of a journal being on the reviewer end, being
on the end where you're creating social media posts is really an
opportunity to develop and refine that skill. And so to all the
fellows out there who are interested, regardless of whether you
want to do academic cardiology or not, it is an important skill,
even in the future, to be able to read and properly interpret
studies. So I highly recommend it. I find for me, I've definitely
learned a lot through the process and have certainly improved.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, there you have it, our five social media editors. First, I
want to thank you all for your contributions to Circulation.
You're an incredibly bright group as everyone learned about. I
have future leaders in cardiology. And we're very fortunate to
have you contributing to Circulation and to our authors and
readers. So thankful to have you as part of Circulation and look
forward to working with you and innovating and coming up with
some creative, new ways to think about social media and ways to
transmit research for journal.


Dr. Amit Khera:


Well, I think there you have it. Again, I'm Amit Khera. I'm
associate editor and standing in this week for Carolyn Lam and
Greg Huntley, who will join you again next week. So thank you for
joining us for Circulation on the Run.


Dr. Greg Hundley:


This program is copyright of the American Heart Association 2021.
The opinions expressed by speakers in this podcast are their own
and not necessarily those of the editors or of the American Heart
Association. For more visit ahajournals.org.