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Balancing Privacy and Professionalism: A Survey of General Surgery Program Directors on Social Media and Surgical Education

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Surgical Education, August 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#34 of 1,614)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (88th percentile)

Mentioned by

twitter
69 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

dimensions_citation
74 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
112 Mendeley
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Title
Balancing Privacy and Professionalism: A Survey of General Surgery Program Directors on Social Media and Surgical Education
Published in
Journal of Surgical Education, August 2016
DOI 10.1016/j.jsurg.2016.07.010
Pubmed ID
Authors

Sean J. Langenfeld, Daniel J. Vargo, Paul J. Schenarts

Abstract

Unprofessional behavior is common among surgical residents and faculty surgeons on Facebook. Usage of social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter is growing at exponential rates, so it is imperative that surgery program directors (PDs) focus on professionalism within social media, and develop guidelines for their trainees and surgical colleagues. Our study focuses on the surgery PDs current approach to online professionalism within surgical education. An online survey of general surgery PDs was conducted in October 2015 through the Association for Program Directors in Surgery listserv. Baseline PD demographics, usage and approach to popular social media outlets, existing institutional policies, and formal curricula were assessed. A total of 110 PDs responded to the survey (110/259, 42.5% response rate). Social media usage was high among PDs (Facebook 68% and Twitter 40%). PDs frequently viewed the social media profiles of students, residents, and faculty. Overall, 11% of PDs reported lowering the rank or completely removing a residency applicant from the rank order list because of online behavior, and 10% reported formal disciplinary action against a surgical resident because of online behavior. Overall, 68% of respondents agreed that online professionalism is important, and that residents should receive instruction on the safe use of social media. However, most programs did not have formal didactics or known institutional policies in place. Use of social media is high among PDs, and they often view the online behavior of residency applicants, surgical residents, and faculty surgeons. Within surgical education, there needs to be an increased focus on institutional policies and standardized curricula to help educate physicians on social media and online professionalism.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 69 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 112 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 <1%
Colombia 1 <1%
Unknown 110 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 13 12%
Student > Doctoral Student 13 12%
Other 10 9%
Student > Bachelor 9 8%
Researcher 8 7%
Other 28 25%
Unknown 31 28%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 47 42%
Social Sciences 5 4%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 4%
Computer Science 5 4%
Engineering 3 3%
Other 8 7%
Unknown 39 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 40. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 July 2020.
All research outputs
#1,036,461
of 25,506,250 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Surgical Education
#34
of 1,614 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#19,588
of 369,610 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Surgical Education
#3
of 18 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,506,250 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,614 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 369,610 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 18 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.