The influence of social media in minimally invasive surgery education: How surgeons exchange experience and knowledge in these platforms.

Engagement with social media is increasing within medical professionals. There are many different platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Twitter, Telegram, and so on. Social media is a new and important tool for surgical education. More and more surgeons are joining restricted groups to discuss surgical techniques, manuscripts, etc in a daily basis. It is important that residents and surgeons have a very critical opinion about what they look online. Not everything is good or feasible.

Engagement with social media (SM) is increasing within medical professionals. There are many different platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter and so on. Only a quarter of the time we use a smartphone is spent making phone calls. The rest is engaging in social networks.[1] The use of these SM platforms can change the way we learn minimally invasive surgery completely. Many surgical organisations, journals and surgeons use SM l to show laparoscopic procedures worldwide. Among the most popular SM, Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) is a very popular microblogging platform among surgeons which allows them to share short chain text messages worldwide. They usually post links to edited videos showing minimally invasive procedures. Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) gathered a great number of surgeons and residents in different and specific groups: International Hernia Collaboration (IHC), Mini Friends, Robotic Surgery Collaboration (RSC) and others. Previous studies have reported on the contemporary adoption of SM across the various surgical specialties ranging from plastic surgery,[2] urology,[3] and colorectal surgeons.[4]

We posted a Google survey on these three groups on Facebook. These restricted groups are formed only by general surgeons, general surgery residents and medical students: IHC, RSC and Mini Friends. The survey was answered by 309 participants. About 65% of the participants look for online surgical education every day. 59.5% publish in SM their difficult cases to discuss with other surgeons. 78.6% comment on other surgeons cases who ask for help. 85.4% would consider changing their practice based on other surgeons tips or tricks published on SM. 62.5% have already changed their practice based on experiences published in SM. 278 (90%) participants see no problem in publishing cases in restricted groups.

It is important to comment that only surgeons, students and residents can access these groups. Many surgeons express concern regarding ethic problems for posting surgical cases online. However, others justify that there is no identification in imaging or videos that can compromise patients. Besides, surgeons also share their published papers, presentations in conferences and lectures.

It is important that residents and surgeons have a very critical opinion about what they look online. Not everything is good or feasible. Many surgeons express their concern regarding the lack of a peer-review process when using SM. However, the use of SM for educational purposes is becoming more popular among surgeons and residents. Therefore, a broader discussion should be encouraged to take advantage of this important tool.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.