Survey shows that among physicians, men get more professional benefits from social media
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In general, physicians believed that social media is a helpful tool for collaboration, but men were more likely than women to report certain professional benefits from using it, a survey showed.
“Using social media could be a way to get around some of the structural and systemic disparities that exist to try and amplify the voices that are needed most but are often underrepresented,” Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology, oncology and cell therapy at the University of Illinois Cancer Center in Chicago, told Healio Primary Care.
The researchers administered the survey on Twitter between February and March 2019 to determine how social media use differed among physicians based on gender and how their careers benefited from it. A total of 577 physicians — 321 of them women — responded to the survey.
Jain and colleagues reported that both men and women used social media to build their professional networks (69% vs. 67%) and agreed that social media use increased collaborations with individuals within (70% vs. 68%) and outside their specialty (59% vs. 56%) and outside their institution (65% vs. 63%).
However, compared with men, women physicians were less likely to report that social media use broadened their research portfolio (48% vs. 36%; P = .005) or resulted in a speaking engagement (39% vs. 30%; P < .001) or a scholarship opportunity (25% vs. 21%; P = .02). Women physicians were more likely to report that social media use helped build a support network (55% vs. 73%; P < .001), but they were less likely to use social media to learn about research (83% vs. 68%; P < .001) or clinical topics (86% vs. 76%; P = .003).
Jain, who is also an Editorial Board Member of HemOnc Today and host of the Oncology Overdrive podcast, said the findings were a “little surprising” and “concerning.”
“Time spent on social media is typically done in ‘free time’ and is underappreciated and uncompensated, similar to much of the equity work women in medicine engage in,” she said. “If we want to ensure we are advancing diversity, equity and inclusion both in real life and in the digital space, it is necessary to remember to apply the same intentionality when engaging in the digital world.”
Jain encouraged physicians to learn about organizations like Women of Impact and Dear Pandemic, and events like the Women in Medicine Summit, all of which provide examples of how to “apply an equity lens to our engagements on social media,” she said.