Residency program social media presence associated with increased applications, diversity
Orthopedics surgery residency programs with a presence on Twitter and Instagram had increased program applications and increased resident diversity during the 2019 application cycle, according to published results.
Kevin Y. Wang, MD, and colleagues from the department of orthopedic surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital evaluated the association of orthopedic residency program social media presence with applications received and resident diversity during the 2019 application cycle. Social media presence was defined as having at least one Twitter or Instagram account.
Researchers used data from the Twitter and Instagram accounts of 179 orthopedic residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to record several social media statistics, such as date of first post, number of posts and number of followers. Researchers then used data from the Association of American Medical Colleges Residency Explorer Tool to record the percentage of white residents, percentage of male residents, program ranking and number of applications from these residency programs.
Overall, 39.7% of residency programs (n=71) qualified as having a social media presence – 34.6% (n=62) had a Twitter account and 16.7% (n=30) had an Instagram account. Researchers found programs with a social media presence during the 2019 application cycle had higher average rankings (48.1 vs. 99.6), increased applications (699 vs. 573), increased gender diversity (16% vs. 11%) and increased racial diversity (28% vs. 25%) compared with programs without a social media presence. Researchers specifically noted a Twitter presence was associated with increased odds of gender and racial diversity; however, an Instagram presence had no effect on resident diversity.
“Social media may be an appropriate avenue to demonstrate inclusivity measures of a program and highlight opportunities that are otherwise not as publicized,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Collapse
Read more about