Australian orthopaedic surgeons and social media: The future of education and communication?

• Published in: Australasian Medical Journal (Online) Vol. 13; no. 10; pp. 278 - 285
• Main Authors: Thorne, Dane, Burton, Codey, Tulloch, Scott
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Floreat Australasian Medical Journal 01.01.2020
• Subjects: Communication; Gender; Health care; Professional development; Social networks; Social research; Surgeons; User behavior; Web sites; Australia
• DOI: 10.35841/1836-1935.13.10.278-285

Background Social media has changed the way that we interact with the world.1 Popular platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide a means for individuals to share information in real-time, reaching audiences around the world.2 Its use has expanded rapidly, with an almost tenfold increase in social networking use from 2005-2015.3 The impact of social media on modern society is undeniable, with the average person under the age of 35 spending almost four hours on social media platforms every day4 and Facebook totalling 2.45 billion monthly active users worldwide.5 In most business models, social media is now well accepted and considered a vital resource for marketing and customer engagement.6 Despite its rapid rise, the health care system in general has adapted relatively slowly to the influence of social media,7 however, some medical subspecialties have begun to successfully utilise it for educational and commercial purposes.8-11 There are a number of ways in which orthopaedic surgeons can benefit from the use of social media. Social media platforms have expanded to become valuable networks for patients and doctors to communicate with each other, while providing medical practitioners a tool for educational and personal collaboration.12 Doctors are also beginning to utilise social media platforms as a way of attracting prospective patients.13 Social media has increasingly been shown to serve as a useful source of health-related information for patients,14 while also being utilised by the community as a method of researching their healthcare providers.15 Despite the potential benefits that professional use of social media platforms provide, doctors are often reluctant to engage with them in this capacity. A google search was performed with the surgeon's name, followed by the term 'orthopaedic surgeon' in order to determine whether the surgeon had a private practice website and whether the website represented an individual surgeon or a group of surgeons. A further analysis of the information in relation to surgeon gender, geographical location, and years in practice were also examined in order to assess their correlation to the observed level of uptake.