Do You Follow Us (@TCSurgeon) on Twitter?

Social Media (SoMe) have recently become popular in our daily life. They have changed the way we communicate, how we interact, engage, consume, and search for information. More than 2 billion individuals use SoMe worldwide, and the number is expected to exceed 3 billion in 2021.[1] But SoMe is not just your family's Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp, it is much more.

In cardiovascular medicine, the most popular SoMe platform is Twitter.[1] [2] It is a digital media platform that allows to quickly view what is being discussed at the moment. Twitter (www.twitter.com) has a total of 330 million users worldwide. In medicine, it offers enormous potential benefits for both physicians and patients, as it gives access to the newest health information, scientific findings, announcements, as well as the possibility to network globally with experts, to share opinions and knowledge through discussions.

Twitter is a microblog allowing users to post 280 characters per message, resulting in the creation and sharing of information, ideas, personal messages, and other forms of communication including images, videos, and links. Users can be individuals, institutions, medical journals, health organizations, companies, etc., and each of those is identified by a profile. The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon is identified by the handle “@TCSurgeon”. “Tweets” often include hashtags (#) to words connecting the message to a specific content on SoMe, for example, @TCSurgeon often uses hashtags such as #cardiacsurgery, #cardiology, #cardiotwitter, #thoracicsurgery, and #pneumology.

Twitter enables a scientific journal to increase the article visibility by disseminating content to a large audience which might drive engagement and discussions about the scientific findings published. This process is effective, for example, @TCSurgeon tweeted 13 times in July and August 2019, and those messages, images, and videos have been seen by more than 16,000 individuals worldwide. In contrast, the distribution of the journals' hard copies is limited to 1,450 individuals every 1 to 2 months. Thus, Twitter allows to disseminate scientific findings to an audience that does not have access to the journal. First studies on the effect of SoMe in cardiovascular medicine have been published, for example, one recent prospective randomized trial confirmed that SoMe, in particular Twitter, significantly improves cardiothoracic surgery research dissemination.[3] If this eventually leads to an increase in the “Journal Impact Factor” (JIF) of a journal is being debated, but at least one study revealed a correlation of SoMe dissemination and higher JIF in cardiovascular journals.[4] The impact of SoMe is probably more appropriately measured by Altmetrics.[2]

So, do you need a Twitter account? Of course! In a recent survey, 70% of surgeons indicated that they believe SoMe benefited their professional development, and 22% preferred SoMe as their primary modality of networking and communicating with colleagues.[2] Twitter seems to be an effective and efficient tool for individuals to gain knowledge through access to the newest scientific findings (e.g., check #cardiotwitter, #cardiacsurgery), late-breaking health news and announcements (e.g., check #DGTHG, #FDA, #SGHC), medical education (e.g., check #FOAMed, #CardioEd), conventions (e.g., check #DGTHG, #EACTS19, #ESC19), case reports (e.g., check #JACCCaseReports), and enables communication and collaboration with colleagues.

Nevertheless, SoMe can be misleading. Physicians and surgeons should pay close attention to professionalism and ethics, and must be vigilant about what they post, retweet, or like. In particular, patient privacy and confidentiality must be protected by all means, and physicians are required to be honest with patients and colleagues. A special temptation of SoMe is exaggeration of a physician's skills and knowledge. Some use SoMe to pretend a special expertise, media presence, and status which, in turn, can be misleading or deceptive. To prevent such abuse, ethical standards for cardiothoracic surgeons' participation in SoMe have been published recently.[5]

SoMe has changed the way physicians and patients receive health care information, learn, educate, and interact with each other. But SoMe, and, in particular, Twitter, has the potential to enrich our profession and communication and as such may even improve the management and therapy of our patients in daily clinical practice.

So, follow us on Twitter (@TCSurgeon) and, hopefully, comment, retweet, or like our tweets.

Social Media Editor, The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon

• References

• 1 Parwani P, Choi AD, Lopez-Mattei J. , et al. Understanding social media: opportunities for cardiovascular medicine. J Am Coll Cardiol 2019; 73 (09) 1089-1093
• 2 Alraies MC, Raza S, Ryan J. Twitter as a new core competency for cardiologists. Circulation 2018; 138 (13) 1287-1289
• 3 Luc JGY, Archer MA, Arora RC. , et al. Social media improves cardiothoracic surgery literature dissemination: results of a randomized trial. Ann Thorac Surg 2019; S0003-4975(19)31162-2 , In press
• 4 Walsh MN. Social media and cardiology. J Am Coll Cardiol 2018; 71 (09) 1044-1047
• 5 Varghese Jr. TK, Entwistle III JW, Mayer JE, Moffatt-Bruce SD, Sade RM. ; Cardiothoracic Ethics Forum. Ethical standards for cardiothoracic surgeons' participation in social media. Ann Thorac Surg 2019; 108 (03) 666-670