RMOS Consultancy : Why Should Medical Practitioners Use LinkedIn

Why Medical Practitioners Should Use LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social networking site mainly used for professional networking; it is the world's largest professional networking website and it grows larger every day. Yet, not many medical practitioners make use of it for varied reasons; for instance, they may feel that patients do not actually go to LinkedIn and look at a doctor's CV before they decide to visit them. However, this does not mean that you should forgo LinkedIn all together. While there may be reasons for medical practitioners not using LinkedIn, there are reasons for you to make use of it.

Reasons to Consider Using LinkedIn

• You can place your CV there: While you may not be interested in moving to another hospital, if another medical professional or an organization wants to learn about you (and your practice), then you can allow them to do that by placing your professional bio on LinkedIn. Further, LinkedIn is one place on the internet where you can control what (professional) information people can see about you. And while patients do not, usually, visit your LinkedIn profile before visiting you, if they want to do so, then they should be able to.
• You can use it as a great (and selective) networking tool: All the contacts that you care about and professional relationships – with another doctor that you met at a conference, for example – that you want to develop will be in one place. And, if you don't want to, you need not bother with responding to and accepting random requests.
• It is a “just in case” option: No one knows what will happen in the future. Change is inevitable and it may so happen that you may need to move to another hospital or another place for practicing medicine. In such cases, your LinkedIn profile can act as a showcase of all of your accomplishments.