The Characterization of Social Media in Orthopaedic Surgery

Abstract

Background: There is a paucity of information regarding the use of social media by both orthopaedic residents and applicants. Therefore, this investigation aimed to (1) characterize the use of social media by current orthopaedic surgery residents and applicants to an orthopaedic surgery residency and (2) evaluate the influence of social media on applicants to an orthopaedic surgery residency. Methods: An anonymous, nationwide survey was conducted among current orthopaedic surgery residents and fourthyear medical students applying to the authors' orthopaedic surgery. Survey data included demographics, social media usage preferences, social media engagement, and the influence of social media on applicants' perception of and decision to apply to residency programs. Results: Three hundred twelve surveys were completed, which included 170 resident surveys and 142 applicant surveys. Two hundred thirty-seven of the respondents (76%) use social media daily. Two hundred fourteen respondents (72%) have listened to orthopaedic surgery podcasts. Regarding educational social media posts, 81% of the residents and 57% of the applicants preferred case presentations with corresponding imaging; for noneducational posts, 89% of the applicants preferred content involving resident life outside the hospital. When asked how much an orthopaedic residency program's social media presence influenced application decision (on a scale of 0-10, 0 being no influence and 10 being the most influence), the mean response was 3.47 among all respondents. Conclusions: Most survey respondents use social media daily, have listened to orthopaedic podcasts, find case presentations with corresponding imaging the most useful format for educational posts, and prefer to see residency programs post about resident life outside of the hospital. A residency program's social media presence did not significantly influence applicants' decision to apply to a specific program; however, there was a trend toward increasing influence with more recent applicants. Future research should further investigate social media's impact on the residency application process and the influence of social media on orthopaedic applicants and residents.Disclosure: The Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest forms are provided with the online version of the article (http://links.lww.com/JBJSOA/A379).

Professional Social Media Use Among Orthopedic and Trauma Surgeons in Germany: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire-Based Study

“…In this study, employment-oriented SM, YouTube, and messenger apps, which were the SM platforms used the most for educational purposes, were each used by less than 25% of the participants. In contrast, a study by Schneider et al [31] found among a group of 312 orthopedic residents and medical students that the majority showed a high interest in accessing educational information via SM [31]. This difference may be explained by the fact that the presented study included participants from all age groups and experience levels, and not only residents or medical students who might show a higher affinity to SM due to their younger age.…”

“…In the health care system, SM is shaping the ways and dimensions of communication and the dissemination and consumption of (health) information [7,30]. The active use and popularity of SM in the professional context was particularly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic [31,32]. Several benefits of professional SM use have been previously identified.…”

New surgical techniques and social media in orthopaedics. Is a scientific peer-reviewed journal assimilated to a social media platform?

“…In recent published surveys [9][10][11][12][13], the orthopaedic surgery residents and applicants confirmed the wide use of social media in information and learning. The main use was for making choices in residency program and was performed mainly by listening to podcasts.…”

Information videos posted on Instagram by orthopaedics and sports traumatology surgeons mostly explain surgical technique, and the least mentioned topics are injury prevention and complications

“…There are many studies in the current literature on whether social media is informative and useful in the field of orthopaedics [3,[21][22][23]25]. Many orthopaedic surgeons and journals have at least one social media account, including Instagram, with shoulder and knee surgeons being the most active user groups [5,6,14,20,24,25].…”