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The Impact of Social Media for Adult Reconstruction Surgeons: A Prevalence Study With Online and Academic Reputations
Joseph D Lee1, Sameer R Khawaja2, Kevin Y Heo3
1Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, Washington State University, Spokane, WA.
Background:
Social media has emerged as a powerful tool that has transformed communication and decision-making across the medical profession, including within the arthroplasty community. This study examined the association between social media use by arthroplasty surgeons and online patient satisfaction and research engagement.
Methods:
The American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons directory was reviewed for all members in the United States. Online searches were conducted on 239 randomly sampled members for professional profiles on ResearchGate, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. The presence of personal or practice group websites was also assessed. Healthgrades, Google Reviews, and Vitals were queried for surgeons' average ratings, number of reviews, and number of comments. Surgeons' h-indices were recorded from Scopus. A summated online presence score was calculated to identify the top 15% of social media users in the sample.
Results:
Two hundred thirteen adult reconstruction fellowship-trained and 26 non-adult reconstruction fellowship-trained surgeons were included in the study. The top 15% of social media users had higher average Google Reviews ratings compared to the remaining 85%. Surgeons with Instagram and Facebook profiles had higher average Google Reviews ratings than those without. Arthroplasty surgeons on LinkedIn and ResearchGate also had higher average h-indices than those without such profiles.
Conclusions:
Social media engagement was positively associated with patient ratings on physician-rating websites. Activity on LinkedIn and ResearchGate correlated with higher h-indices, reflecting greater research engagement. As social media use among arthroplasty surgeons grows, web-based marketing can create platforms to promote patient engagement and academic literature.
