Is a Picture Really Worth More than a Thousand Words? Which Instagram Post Types Elicit the Best Response for Radiology Education

Writing and publishing papers in academic radiology: Why it needs to be more than a box checked for promotion

An ongoing challenge in academic radiology is balancing the need to read the scans and generate relative value units (RVUs) with the need to ensure academic leadership and the consistent production of impactful publications. Indeed, the tripartite mission of academic radiology (i.e. clinical care, research, and teaching) does not lend itself to obvious answers in an era when institutions and departments are increasingly focused on RVU generation. Even the minority of radiologists who are interested in pursuing the academic mission and accept academic jobs are likely to find their time increasingly squeezed by massive volumes of scans to read and the priority placed on RVU generation. There are often no incentives for impactful academic work, leading to a decreasing relative number of manuscript submissions from U.S.-based researchers. With the lack of external incentivization for publication, writing and publishing papers must instead be driven by intrinsic enjoyment and a sense of accomplishment. The ability to think of an idea, to get a group of co-authors together, to acquire the data and/or put together the idea into a form that is ready for final publication, and to see that process through to the end is rewarded only by personal satisfaction. Perhaps, in the era of RVU generation, publishing papers in a form of defiance of a system that is hampering the academic mission.

Reaching a Wider Audience: Instagram's Role in Dairy Cow Nutrition Education and Engagement

The paper presents an overview of the usage of Instagram as a social media platform for teaching and engagement in the field of dairy cow nutrition and management. Our Instagram content, which includes posts, stories, hashtags, reels, and live videos, aims to educate and engage our followers and covers a wide range of topics, including research updates, student activities, and information on dairy cow health and welfare. This approach to education allows us to reach a larger audience while also providing a forum for interaction and discussion on essential dairy cow nutrition concerns.

The growing role of social media for research and education in radiology

While the adoption of social media platforms has become commonplace for personal life use, its practice has tremendously grown for professional usage in medicine, and particularly in the field of radiology. The use of alternative metrics, or altmetrics, scores have developed in an effort to quantify the impact of research beyond traditional metrics, such as citation rate and journal impact factor, particularly to recognize the impact of social media on dissemination and promotion of research. Social media usage in the realm of radiology has expectedly been adopted for the purposes of medical education, research, networking, and advocacy. However, some platforms have been used as a medium to discuss and share the day-to-day nature in the field of radiology, burnout in radiology, as well as radiology-themed humor. The purpose of this review article was discuss the role of altmetrics, as well as the specific uses of social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and more. The role of ethics in social media practice related to radiology are discussed.

Which Types of Facebook Posts Yield the Best Response for Radiology Education: A One-Year Analysis of What We Learned

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES

We post several times daily on our Facebook page, CTisus, to educate radiology students and professionals globally. We aimed to determine how our data compared for different types of posts and ascertain the popularity of videos versus case images, illustrations versus case images, and whether cinematic rendering performed better than traditional computed tomography.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We exported data for one year's worth of Facebook posts (November 1, 2020 to October 31, 2021) and categorized posts into 18 types. Our primary outcome was popularity of each post, measured by "reach" and "engagement" counts provided by Facebook.

RESULTS

Among the 9057 posts exported, "just for fun" posts performed the best, followed by quiz images. Case images performed significantly better than instructional videos (p < 0.0001). However, the opposite was true for engagement, where instructional videos performed significantly better than case images (p = 0.0012). For both reach and engagement, case images performed better than medical illustrations (p < 0.0001). For both reach (p < 0.0005) and engagement (p < 0.0001), traditional computed tomography performed significantly better than cinematic rendering. All video types had better engagement than case images and medical illustrations (p < 0.0001) and both had significantly better engagement than text (p < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION

Our results may help other educators choose what types of content to create and post on social media to achieve the best impact on learners.

Radiology on Instagram: Analysis of Public Accounts and Identified Areas for Content Creation

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES

Radiology social media research has focused on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, with minimal attention to Instagram, which may be a natural platform for engagement. We evaluated features of public radiology-related Instagram accounts.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Instagram accounts were searched using the term "radiology." Two independent raters used a coding system developed through initial content review to categorize account user types and post aims over the study month (October 2019). Multivariate linear regressions were performed.

RESULTS

49 Instagram accounts and their 459 posts were retrieved. Users had median 117 total posts (interquartile range 43-203), 9 posts during the study month (1-16), 3079 followers (695-19,600), and 106 followed users (50-351). Most users were radiologists (41%, most commonly academic), radiology practices (12%, most commonly academic) and 10% radiology professional societies. The 459 posts had median 178 likes (interquartile range 51-353) and 2 comments (0-5); single videos had median 4693 views (2183-6080). 75% of posts were radiology images or videos (of these, 29% MRI, 28% CT). 65% of posts were clinical imaging cases (most commonly neuroradiology). Seven posts violated HIPAA regulations, all originating outside the U.S. When controlling for number of account followers, posts by radiology society (β = -130.6, p = 0.017) and practice accounts (β = -90.6, p = 0.049) had fewer post likes. An artwork post was the only significant predictor of greater post likes (β = +866.2, p < 0.001) and comments (β = +14.3, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Instagram is commonly used by academic radiologists to present clinical imaging cases. Radiologists should consider opportunities for greater application of this unique image-based social media platform.

Using Instagram to Enhance a Hematology and Oncology Teaching Module During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional Study

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the rapid expansion of novel tools for digital medical education. At our university medical center, an Instagram account was developed as a tool for medical education and used for the first time as a supplement to the hematology and medical oncology teaching module of 2020/2021.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to evaluate the acceptance and role of Instagram as a novel teaching format in the education of medical students in hematology and medical oncology in the German medical curriculum.

METHODS

To investigate the role of Instagram in student education of hematology and medical oncology, an Instagram account was developed as a tie-in for the teaching module of 2020/21. The account was launched at the beginning of the teaching module, and 43 posts were added over the 47 days of the teaching module (at least 1 post per day). Five categories for the post content were established: (1) engagement, (2) self-awareness, (3) everyday clinical life combined with teaching aids, (4) teaching aids, and (5) scientific resources. Student interaction with the posts was measured based on overall subscription, "likes," comments, and polls. Approval to conduct this retrospective study was obtained from the local ethics commission of the University Medical Center Goettingen.

RESULTS

Of 164 medical students, 119 (72.6%) subscribed to the Instagram account, showing high acceptance and interest in the use of Instagram for medical education. The 43 posts generated 325 interactions. The highest number of interactions was observed for the category of engagement (mean 15.17 interactions, SD 5.01), followed by self-awareness (mean 14 interactions, SD 7.79). With an average of 7.3 likes per post, overall interaction was relatively low. However, although the category of scientific resources garnered the fewest likes (mean 1.86, SD 1.81), 66% (27/41) of the student participants who answered the related Instagram poll question were interested in studies and reviews, suggesting that although likes aid the estimation of a general trend of interest, there are facets to interest that cannot be represented by likes. Interaction significantly differed between posting categories (P<.001, Welch analysis of variance). Comparing the first category (engagement) with categories 3 to 5 showed a significant difference (Student t test with the Welch correction; category 1 vs 3, P=.01; category 1 vs 4, P=.01; category 1 vs 5, P=.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Instagram showed high acceptance among medical students participating in the hematology and oncology teaching curriculum. Students were most interested in posts on routine clinical life, self-care topics, and memory aids. More studies need to be conducted to comprehend the use of Instagram in medical education and to define the role Instagram will play in the future. Furthermore, evaluation guidelines and tools need to be developed.