Connect with Plastic Surgery (2012)

Follow me. Like me. “Friend” me. On a superficial level, the conversations started by the onslaught of social media platforms in the twenty-first century can seem, well, superficial. Yes, Facebook can be used by teenagers to discuss weekend plans. Granted, Twitter is used to follow B-list celebrity feuds and political pot stirring. There's no question, YouTube is flooded with enough viral videos to waste days upon days. However, as is true of all media conduits, the social media channels have a mature side as well. YouTube can spread a supportive, antisuicide message for bullied teens faster, and arguably more effectively, than can school officials. Twitter and Facebook can help young Americans ask debate questions of presidential candidates in real time and help students organize to overthrow dictators in faraway countries. In short, social media have made it easier for you to connect to the world, with its silliness and seriousness paired side-by-side. It has also made it easier for the world to connect with you. The surgical community has been slow to adopt these social media sites. Today, though, the social networks are quickly becoming indispensable tools for many medical organizations.1 Journals, professional societies, and publishers have flocked to the social media to be able to reach out to readers more than just at the time of publication and interact with them one-on-one. It is in this spirit that Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery now devotes energies to sharing articles and status updates on Facebook, tweeting free content and controversial blog posts on Twitter, and posting interesting video discussions and informative introductions on YouTube. REACHING OUT TO THE MASSES: REACHING INDIVIDUALS On Facebook Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery connects daily with over 850 people who have “liked” our page (Fig. 1) and on Twitter, we broadcast to over 1200 readers, including doctors, residents, nurses, advertisers, publishers, and consumers (Fig. 2). Although we are pleased with our ever-growing number of followers, it truly is not about the quantity of social media connections, but the quality.Fig. 1: Facebook.com/PRSJournal.Fig. 2: Twitter.com/PRSJournal.If, in our efforts on these social media platforms, we help one doctor discover a new technique that could improve patient results, or introduce one resident to the field of plastic surgery, then we have accomplished and furthered our Journal's educational purpose. These social media channels effectively merge the professional and private spheres; whereas Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is mostly used by professionals, our social media and web presence are available to e-patients, “health consumers who use the Internet to obtain information about medical issues of interest to them.”1 And there are a lot of these e-patients online seeking medical advice: Pew Internet surveys have shown that 80 percent of all Internet users have used the web for health information.1 Because the Internet is effectively a free-for-all, it is sated with unprofessional opinions and possible medical misinformation. This presents a great opportunity for doctors, medical journals, and professional societies alike to play an educational role in the social media sphere and either correct these erroneous writings or simply populate the web with good, true science. As the American College of Surgeons notes, “as more patients go online for health information, the presence of surgeons online through blogs, Twitter, and other social media sites allows them to contribute expertise and science to a conversation that is frequently dominated by lay people and inaccurate information.”1 This is indeed an opportunity that Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery has embraced as well: our Facebook and Twitter pages are updated daily with abstracts and free full-text articles of important and popular topics. The presence of strenuously peer-reviewed literature available for the e-patient's consumption is extremely important and hitherto unprecedented. Before the Internet, the Journal was virtually restricted to those in our field; with the creation of search engines such as Google and the Journal's move online, consumers could find our information when searching for it. Now, with social media, those that are interested in plastic surgery can log in to their Facebook or Twitter account and consult the experts and the literature directly. The availability of the academic literature, in partial or full free access, to this new breed of Internet-savvy e-patient can only enhance the doctor-patient conversation. Thus, if our social media presence can show one patient the importance of board-certified plastic surgeons and their techniques, then we have truly fulfilled our purpose. A WORLD WIDE WEB OF CONSTANT CONTACT Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery is truly a global journal, and our foray into social media has allowed us far more interaction time with our international readers. The number one country most represented by our Facebook “likes” is the United States of America; this is certainly welcome news, as we always look to embrace and promote America's role in the plastic surgery community. However, over two-thirds of our Facebook fans are from abroad, including Brazil, Italy, Colombia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, United Kingdom, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, to name a few. This is one of the primary reasons we are so eager to continue this social media experiment: on Facebook and Twitter, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery can reach those whom we cannot easily reach with our print journal. On a global scale, we can communicate with readers, answer questions, and pass on best practices; in turn they can converse with us; and, even better yet, surgeons worldwide can discuss the Journal with ease. By definition, a periodical such as Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery can reach its subscribers only periodically. With only 12 issues per year, in a closed system, one could see only 12 points of contact between Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the reader. However, thanks to the Internet, and boosted exponentially by social media, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery can be an entity of constant contact. For the first time in history, the plastic surgery community and the Journal are available to freely interact with each other any time, day or night, nationally and internationally. ENGAGING CONVERSATIONS AND CONTINUING EDUCATION Currently, the dynamic for our online community appears to favor communication from surgeon to surgeon and from surgeon to patient population (as seen on sites such as RealSelf.com, and the subsequent sharing of those conversations on Facebook and Twitter). The lines of social medical communication between surgeon and Journal are mostly limited to “nonwritten” interaction, including “liking” status updates and “retweeting” our posts. However, as social media become more accepted, and the younger generations of plastic surgeons come of age, I predict and hope that we will see more commenting on Facebook and blog posts and more “mentions” on Twitter. When this truly takes full swing, social media conversations may end up serving as an equally accepted adjunct to printed letters and correspondence. The benefits of instant feedback and lively debate on an article will be beneficial to readers and authors in the long run. When we do comment and interact in the sphere of social media, I urge all plastic surgeons to remember that they are representing the specialty as a whole. The written word is even more transparent online, and we need to maintain a level of social interaction and courtesy to allow for this conversation to occur in a very civil and constructive manner. In addition, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery social media presence can ultimately be used as a source of continuing medical education. When groups of surgeons share web content with people with similar interests, “they effectively organize the Web content into … personal learning network[s].”1 In this way, groups of surgeons, residents, or nurses discussing the Journal on Facebook or Twitter can effectively create their own continuing medical education dialogues regarding specific articles or techniques. The use of social media channels as personal learning networks may ultimately even translate into useful tools for graduate medical education curriculums for residents and continuing medical education for practicing surgeons. SOCIAL MEDIA, FOR GOOD Although many people use social media solely for frivolity, at Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery we take our social media efforts seriously. As the slow and steady decline of MySpace shows us, the vehicles for social media online may change. Perhaps newcomers such as Tumblr and Google Plus may eventually supplant Facebook and Twitter as the dominant forms, but it is clear that social media are here for good. As conscientious users, it is my opinion that we can continue to use these conduits for the good of the specialty, for the good of all plastic surgeons, and for the good of the Journal. Social media are a very interactive way for people to learn more about the Journal, know more about our specialty, and learn more about real plastic surgeons. So when you see the alphabet soup of social media icons on our website (Fig. 3), I urge you to click and connect with us, and pass it on to your patients, nurses, residents, and colleagues.Fig. 3: Connect with PRS online.It is not a superficial request: it is the future of communication and interaction for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. So subscribe to our channel on YouTube (youtube.com/PRSjournal), follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/PRSjournal), and like us on Facebook (facebook.com/PRSjournal), because social media are here for good. Rod J. Rohrich, M.D. Editor-in-Chief Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 5959 Harry Hines Boulevard POB1, Suite 300 Dallas, Texas 75390-8820 [email protected]