Fellow Connect members give a panel presentation at Mayo Clinic conference

Recently, Mayo Clinic Connect members and volunteer mentors @IndianaScott @rosemarya @hopeful33250 and @johnbishop took to the stage at the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network (MCSMN) conference for a panel presentation, moderated by me, @colleenyoung, Connect community director. The MCSMN is a professional network and collaborative learning community of those interested in applying social media in health care. 

In this video, audience participants are primarily social media communications specialists, hospital marketers, clinicians and staff from hospital systems from across the nation and around the world.

The panel’s objective was to give the patient and caregiver perspective and to spark the audience to think differently, such as:

• Have new ideas about communicating effectively with patients and family caregivers
• Understand the value and impact of patient stories
• Be inspired to learn from online patient conversations like Connect

The four patient panelists also had personal goals to bring to the session:

• John: It’s all about learning something new for me. Knowledge is power (even if I’m re-learning it!)
• Scott: To represent caregivers
• Rosemary: To give a glimpse into how Mayo Clinic Connect volunteer mentors go about mentoring, or how we use our stories and also encourage and listen to people’s stories
• Teresa: To provide the audience with a viewpoint of a volunteer mentor who has seen patient-to-patient posts help those facing anxiety regarding illnesses.

The panel was scheduled during a conference lunch break. Panelists were prepared for the audience to be distracted, coming and going, and having side conversations. It was a social networking conference, after all. As it turned out, the audience was spellbound and very attentive. 

See what you think as you watch. 

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