I used this app for a month and a half in medical school. I found that the basis of the idea seems to be something along the lines of “social media for work”. One of the underlying reasons people use social media is as a release from their everyday life and work as well as an outlet to share their experiences with others. Social media for work is the exact opposite of what draws people to social media in the first place. People don’t want to finish work and then go online to talk more about their job and job performance. Additionally, I found that instead of focusing on patients and learning things helpful for our exams, I was focusing on how to fulfill my Shamaym requirements.
Another detriment of this app was its contribution to the relationship between students. Our group of 5 at the hospital got along very well before we started using the app. After we began using Shamaym there was an air of competition and resentment towards each other that was not present beforehand.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, I did not find that this app offered any kind of educational advantage. It relies on the supervisors (in our case attending physicians) to interact and teach through the app. So on top of teaching us at the hospital, performing their full time job of caring for patients, prepping for procedures, and taking care of their families, they have to find time to interact with students on a platform that doesn’t do anything to help the students. The best way to learn is hands on experience and teaching, which is what we do everyday in the hospital. Having to interact in an app afterwards is a waste of time.
I’d give it zero stars if I could.
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Yuda E