Abstract
Background
The growth of the social media platform Twitter has prompted many to consider its
potential as an educational tool. Little is known about how surgery training programs
are utilizing this resource and whether this platform can provide educational content
effectively. We sought to determine national utilization of Twitter by departments
of surgery in the United States and evaluate if educationally driven content heightened
engagement with the Twitter followers.
Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of social media presence for all Accreditation
Council for Graduation Medical Education accredited general surgery training programs
between October 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016. Each tweet was characterized as either
promotional or educational. Metrics related to account engagement, including impressions
(number of times a tweet is seen) and retweets (number of times a tweet is shared),
were compared. These results were compared against a single departmental account focused
primarily on educational content.
Results
Thirty-two departmental Twitter accounts were identified from the 272 programs approached
associated with accredited general surgery training programs. Training programs posted
a median of 1.0 unique tweets (interquartile range: 0.6–2.3) per week. Tweets were
primarily promotional (81% of posts) and generated marginal engagement with followers
(3.4 likes/tweet; 1.5 retweets/tweet). In contrast, a single, resident-run departmental
account at our institution (University of Michigan) focused on educational content
generated consistent, educational content (19.6 unique tweets/week, 48% of which were
educational), which resulted in increased engagement with followers (11.4 likes/tweet;
5.9 retweets/tweet) compared to other accounts.
Conclusion
Though Twitter is being widely adopted widely by departments of surgery, it is primarily
utilized for promotional content. Use of educational content may improve engagement
from followers.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 11, 2017
Accepted:
October 24,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
