This month on Twitter

Abstract

In February, @bjsurgery generated 212 200 impressions, 424 retweets, and 655 likes. BJS was delighted to welcome Aiswarya Ajith (@ais_ajith), a medical student and aspiring surgeon, as follower number 19 000. There were many popular articles this month. Wu et al.’s RCT of oral versus gastrojejunal feeding for patients with postoperative pancreatic fistula after pancreatectomy was praised as ‘destroying dogmas in pancreatic surgery’ by Giovanni Marchegiani (@Marcheg83)1. @debby_keller shared the Rapid Research Communication she co-authored on patient-reported outcomes following transanal total meso-rectal excision, and together with @DeenaHarji discussed the importance of using institution and registry data for quality of life research in the future2. @Sivesh93 reported on @NatalieBlencowe’s talk at the Royal College of Surgeons of England Upper GI and HPB Collaborative Research Day on the quality of surgical RCTs, in which she discussed the recent systematic review of RCTs in pancreatic surgery3. This BJS article is free to access. The Lancet published an important research letter on the global burden of postoperative death, co-authored by BJS Editor Assistant @aneelbhangu4. This sparked multiple Twitter debates about the interpretation of global health mortality data and how to best understand these numbers in the context of low-resource settings, with many Twitter users citing the recent BJS special issue on Global Surgery5. On this subject, @carisgrimes had some wise words to share: ‘Research has to both benefit the patient, but also seek to build global political priority – working both for the immediate needs of individuals and long term needs of health systems’. For next year’s special issue, BJS was pleased to announce a collaboration with Anaesthesia. Authors are invited to submit original papers and reviews that cover the range of perioperative care. The axiom ‘closing time is not coffee time’ resonated with many BJS followers who shared the March Leading Article by @acdebeaux on abdominal wall closure6. The tweetchat on the subject was very informative and Twitter users can still revisit the discussion with the hashtag #bjsconnect. Regarding wound dressings, BJS Editor @robhinchliffe1 tweeted an RCT from the BJS archives, concerning patients with clean and clean/contaminated wounds randomized to dressing removal either on the first postoperative day or on suture removal7. A fascinating read! Finally, BJS Editor in Chief @JJEarnshaw posted a viral tweet on the importance of reducing plastic waste in the operating theatre. This is a timely and crucial topic, and a global campaign among surgeons would be most welcome.