PD08-10\u2003SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE OF UNITED STATES ACADEMIC UROLOGY RESIDENCY PROGRAMS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Social media (SoMe) has become an integral part of medicine as a means for professional networking, dissemination of research, and patient advocacy. Online crowdsourcing not only serves as a communication tool between urologists but also as a method of outreach with the public. In urology, SoMe is increasingly more popular with over 70% of AUA members having a SoMe accounts. Our objective was to assess the utilization of SoMe by academic urology programs in the United States. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of ACGME accredited urology residency programs in the United States. We included allopathic and osteopathic programs but excluded military programs. Program characteristics obtained from the AUA website included AUA section association, number of full-time faculty, and total number of residents. Program rankings covariates included Doximity Reputation Rank and U.S. News & World Report 2018-2019 Rank and Overall Score. SoMe activity was evaluated by searching program s websites for profile links and searching Google and social media sites for each program. Only profiles specific to urologic division/departments were included. Twitter activity included number of tweets, number of followers, and number of accounts following. Facebook activity included number of followers and number of likes. RESULTS: We identified 134 ACGME accredited urology residency programs. 59% of programs (n=79) had at least one SoMe account including 53% (n=71) with Twitter accounts and 28% (n=37) with Facebook accounts. Twitter activity widely varied between programs with an average 326 total tweets, 676 average followers (range 3-3,574), and 326 (range 3-1,958) average followers. Similarly, Facebook activity varied with an average of 702 likes (range 0-16,069) and an average 684 followers (range 0-15,795). Average number of Twitter and Facebook followers appeared to vary by AUA section (mean 16.8 , range 14-28). CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary data suggest that AUA-affiliated residency programs have significant room for improvement regarding outreach to prospective medical students on Social Media, as evidenced by highly variable rates of social media presence and social media followers. Source of Funding: none