Social Media Marketing: What Do Prospective Patients Want to See?

Assessing the Knowledge and Insight of Medical Students into the Field of Plastic Surgery: A Step Toward Creating Well-Rounded Healthcare Professionals

Introduction Plastic and reconstructive surgery (PRS) is unique in its versatility; however, there seems to be a lack of familiarity with the breadth of the discipline among healthcare workers and medical students. Methods This is a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study conducted between June and July 2021, targeting medical students at Kuwait University. The questionnaire examined three domains: demographics, perception, and knowledge of the scope of PRS. Results A total of 465 medical students completed the survey, with most (N=106, 22.8%) being in their final year (seventh year). The majority (N=414, 89%) of students had no previous clinical exposure to PRS. Among the several PRS disciplines, knowledge was highest in the aesthetic discipline (4.1/5). Awareness in the hand (0.82/5) and craniofacial (0.8/5) disciplines were the lowest. Students in their clinical years had a higher overall PRS score when compared to those in their pre-clinical years (10.9 versus 9.1, p<0.0001). Participants who believed that PRS is a rewarding specialty had higher overall scores compared with those who disagreed (10.3 versus 9.5, p=0.055). Participants who believed that PRS is synonymous with cosmetic surgery had a lower overall score (9.3 versus 10.4, p=0.008). Furthermore, participants who would consider a career in PRS had a better understanding of all aspects of the specialty as evidenced by higher overall scores. Conclusion Exposure to the field of PRS improves medical students' insight into the various disciplines of PRS and ultimately influences how the field is perceived. Efforts should be made toward promoting the exposure of medical students to PRS through clinical placements and/or didactic lectures.

Artificial Intelligence-Generated Social Media Content Creation and Management Strategies for Plastic Surgeons

BACKGROUND

Social media platforms have come to represent integral components of the professional marketing and advertising strategy for plastic surgeons. Effective and consistent content development, however, remains technically demanding and time consuming, prompting most to employ, at non-negligible costs, social media marketing specialists for content planning and development.

OBJECTIVES

In the present study, we aimed to investigate the ability of presently available artificial intelligence (AI) models to assist plastic surgeons in their social media content development and sharing plans.

METHODS

An AI large language model was prompted on the study's objectives through a series of standardized user interactions. Social media platforms of interest, on which the AI model was prompted, included Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter).

RESULTS

A 1-year, entirely AI-generated social media plan, comprising a total of 1091 posts for the 3 aforementioned social media platforms, is presented. Themes of the AI-generated content proposed for each platform were classified in 6 categories, including patient-related, practice-related, educational, "uplifting," interactive, and promotional posts. Overall, 91 publicly recognized holidays and observant and awareness days were incorporated into the content calendars. The AI model demonstrated an ability to differentiate between the distinct formats of each of the 3 social media platforms investigated, generating unique ideas for each, and providing detailed content development and posting instructions, scripts, and post captions, leveraging features specific to each platform.

CONCLUSIONS

By providing detailed and actionable social media content creation and posting plans to plastic surgeons, presently available AI models can be readily leveraged to assist in and significantly alleviate the burden associated with social media account management, content generation, and potentially patient conversion.

Top Pediatric Dermatology Twitter Post Characteristics and Trends From 2020 to 2021: Content Analysis

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The Usefulness of Instagram Posts Tagging Hand Surgery Conditions

Introduction  The objective of this study was to assess the usefulness of Instagram posts for users seeking information about common hand conditions. Materials and Methods  An internet-based study was performed of the top 200 trending posts on Instagram for each of the tags #carpaltunnel and #triggerfinger. The trending position (1 through 200), number of likes (for all posts), and number of views (for video posts only) were recorded. Each post was assessed to determine whether it would be useful for a user seeking medical information. Useful and not useful posts were further classified into thematic categories. Results  Useful posts comprised only 21% of #carpaltunnel posts and 12% of #triggerfinger posts. #carpaltunnel had a significantly higher proportion of useful posts than #triggerfinger. For both #carpaltunnel and #trigger finger, useful posts were not associated with trending position or number of likes. Useful posts commonly provided a clinical image or an anatomical diagram. Posts that were not useful were generally irrelevant to the hand condition, but a minority provided information not supported by evidence or were solely advertising material. Conclusion  Hand surgery patients can be educated that, in its current form, Instagram is not a source of useful information about common hand conditions.

Benefits, drawbacks, and challenges of social media use in dermatology: A systematic review

The presence of dermatological information on social media has grown exponentially over the last two decades. Consequently, the recent literature on this topic is abundant. Many authors have highlighted that social media constitutes a unique opportunity for patient education. Additionally, numerous other benefits of these platforms have been reported. However, other authors have focused on the potential risks that these networks involve. The main concerns are patient confidentiality, legal considerations and ethical issues. Therefore, we stand at a crossroads where the many advantages of social media use in dermatology seem to be underestimated due to the presence of potential drawbacks. At this point, we propose that a systematic review of the positive and negative aspects of using social media in dermatology is necessary. We carried out a comprehensive systematic review dating from inception to July 2021. Finally, 161 articles were included. Fifteen benefits, 11 drawbacks and 10 challenges of social media use in dermatology were identified and discussed. Suggested strategies to address the identified drawbacks were provided. Overall, while there are risks to using social media, they are outnumbered by their benefits. Therefore, dermatologists should embrace this opportunity to educate patients and aim to create rigorous and engaging content.

Readability of Online Hand Surgery Patient Educational Materials: Evaluating the Trend Since 2008

PURPOSE

Online patient educational materials have historically been written at a higher-than-recommended sixth grade reading level. The objectives of this study were to assess the readability of online hand surgery patient educational materials from the official online patient resource website of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) and to compare changes in the readability of the current ASSH online patient educational materials with those in 2008 and 2015.

METHODS

An internet-based study of all 88 English language patient educational materials on HandCare.org, the official online patient resource website of the ASSH, was performed. The readability of each article was assessed using the Flesch reading ease formula, Flesch-Kincaid grade level, Coleman-Liau index, Gunning-Fog index, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook grade level. To evaluate the trend in the readability of ASSH online hand surgery patient educational materials, the Flesch-Kincaid grade levels of articles published in 2020 were compared with those of data published in 2008 and 2015.

RESULTS

The average Flesch reading ease score of the patient educational materials was 57.6, which is at the high-school reading level. The average reading grade level of patient educational materials ranged from 9.0 to 12.3 depending on the readability metric used. The average Flesch-Kincaid grade level of all the ASSH patient educational materials was 9.8 in 2020, which is significantly better than 10.4 in 2008 but significantly worse than 8.5 in 2015.

CONCLUSIONS

Online hand surgery patient educational materials continue to be written for the general public at a higher-than-recommended reading grade level. There has been no substantial improvement in the readability of online hand surgery patient educational materials since 2008.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

Improvements are needed in the readability of online patient educational materials to ensure that patients with all health literacy levels are able to comprehend and benefit from health information.

Correlation Between Social Media Postings and Academic Citations of Hand Surgery Research Publications

PURPOSE

The relationship between social media postings and academic citations of hand surgery research publications is not known. The objectives of this study were (1) to quantify adoption of social media for the dissemination of original research publications by 3 hand surgery journals, and (2) to determine the correlation between social media postings and academic citations in recent hand surgery research publications.

METHODS

An Internet-based study was performed of all research articles from 3 hand surgery journals published from January 2018 to March 2019. A final sample of 472 original full-length scientific research articles was included. For each article, the total number of social media postings was determined using Twitter, as well as the number of tweets, number of retweets, number of tweets from an official outlet, and number of tweets from an author. The number of academic citations for each article was determined using Google Scholar.

RESULTS

Average number of academic citations per article was 3.9. Average number of social media posts per article was 3.2, which consisted of an average of 1.3 tweets and 1.9 retweets per article. The number of academic citations per article was weakly correlated with the number of social medial postings, the number of tweets, and the number of retweets. The number of tweets from an official outlet and from an author were weakly correlated with academic citation.

CONCLUSIONS

In the early adoption of social media for the dissemination of hand surgery research, there is a weak correlation between social media posting of hand surgery research and academic citation.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE

Future studies are needed to assess whether social media posting of hand surgery research results in academic citations at the longer time intervals necessary for research publication maturity.

Social Media and Plastic Surgery Practice Building: A Thin Line Between Efficient Marketing, Professionalism, and Ethics

Social media sites and platforms have grown in numbers with an enormous potential to reach and disseminate information in real time. They are impacting tremendously for better or for worse on the current practice of plastic surgery. As the demand for elective plastic surgery, in particular for aesthetic procedures, continues to rise, there is a need to determine the influence of social media advertisements and how it motivates the public to undergo cosmetic procedures. Most importantly, there is an urgent need to determine how the social media are impacting plastic surgery practice building and what is proper and efficient marketing while upholding ethics of the medical profession? A thorough PICO tool-based comprehensive literature search was conducted. Fifty-one peer-reviewed publications, 15 patient-centered, 33 provider-centered, and three combined patient/provider were identified to be relevant to the use of social media in plastic surgery and were selected for this review. Evidence on how social media influences the medical practice and helps in practice building remains scarce; nevertheless, reliance of plastic surgeons on social media to improve their practice has been increasing steadily. Social media may be a powerful tool to promote one's career. It presents, however, serious professional, legal, and ethical challenges including maintenance of professionalism and protecting patient confidentiality. If misused, it may be a quick way to end a plastic surgery practice.Level of Evidence V This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

#OculoplasticsandSocialMedia: a review of social media in oculoplastics and relevant subspecialties

The permeation of social media into life almost goes without bounds and medicine is no exception. While social media holds great potential for physicians and medicine, it also comes with concurrent spread of disinformation. This increases the importance of evidence-based information from qualified physicians on social media.Although the definition of social media is broad, in general, it refers to the use of web-based platforms to connect one human to another. In oculoplastic surgery, these relationships can be physician to physician, physician to patient, patient to patient, and vendor to physician. These relationships mostly involve education, social support, and advertising, but can also include research and government advocacy. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the current utilization of social media in oculoplastic surgery and relevant subspecialties.

The communicative paradigm shift of the digital age: The skinny on social media

In this editorial, we explore several relevant issues pertaining to social media use including influencers and photo-editing software. The aforementioned topics are discussed vis-à-vis their profound positive and negative effects on both patients and aesthetic physicians. The reader is invited to appreciate the importance of social media use in aesthetic medicine and the pitfalls its use presents.

The Evolution of Patients' and Surgeons' Perspectives Towards the Role of the Internet and Social Media in Breast Augmentation Over 5 Years

BACKGROUND

The influence of the internet and social media (SoMe) in the decision-making of patients is recognized. Plastic surgeons are aware of this trend but are entangled between ethics, professionalism, and business acumen.

OBJECTIVES

In this study, the authors presented the evolution of perspectives of patients and surgeons recruited through a private clinic over 5 years.

METHODS

A questionnaire was administered to patients consulting for primary breast augmentation in 2014, 2017, and 2019. Plastic surgeons who worked at or visited the Akademikliniken in 2014, 2017, and 2019 completed a separate questionnaire.

RESULTS

In total, 1646 patient responses were collected. Patients who started their information gathering with the internet increased from 68.0% to 72.9%, and 94.1% of patients looked for information about aesthetic surgery on the internet before their consultation. Patients who read about aesthetic surgery on SoMe increased 29.1%. Of 462 surgeons recruited, 62% opined that the majority of patients had gathered information online before consultation. Fewer surgeons in 2019 thought that the internet and SoMe led to better information (down from 61.7% to 35.2%). An increase from 38.3% to 65.3% of surgeons attributed it to unrealistic expectations. However, only 9.7% of surgeons would support removal of plastic surgery material from SoMe compared with 21.9% in 2014.

CONCLUSIONS

The increased utilization and influence of the internet and SoMe on patients and surgeons is rapid. Aesthetic plastic surgeons must equip themselves to cope with the risks and capitalize on the opportunity for patient engagement and public education.

How to Leverage Social Media in Private Practice

Social media has become a rising popular online medium for facilitating the exchange of information and ideas for the purpose of education and networking, especially in the realm of plastic surgeon. It is important for facial plastic surgeons in private practice to recognize the influence of and engagement in social media, particularly among younger adults given the ongoing movement of cosmetic patients seeking facial rejuvenation treatments at an earlier age. This article discusses the most recent trends in social media and facial plastic surgery as well as the benefits and challenges of social media in private practice.

Correlation Between Social Media Posts and Academic Citations of Orthopaedic Research

The objectives of this study were to quantify adoption of social media for the dissemination of original research in orthopaedic research and to determine the correlation between academic citations and social medial posts among recent orthopaedic publications.