Khawaja Zohaib R, Villenthi Akalya, Bardawil Charles E, Patwa Simran P, Gilani Aaron S, Schachner Benjamin I, Baal Ulysis H, Cambronero Gabriel E, Sweeney Joseph C, Desai Nidhi N, Craven Timothy E, Imielski Bartlomiej R
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Department of Biostatistics and Data Science, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
JTCVS Open. 2025 Jun 16;26:306-312. doi: 10.1016/j.xjon.2025.06.003. eCollection 2025 Aug.
Social media use among cardiothoracic surgeons has yet to be analyzed. This study aimed to explore how online media utilization by cardiothoracic surgeons differs by subspecialty, sex, geographic region, practice type, level of experience, and training pathway.
A list of 223 cardiothoracic surgeons was generated by querying the 1066 members of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and randomly selecting 223 actively practicing surgeons. For each surgeon, demographic information and online platform information was searched for in a standardized manner. Platforms assessed included practice websites, personal websites, CTSNet, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, Wikipedia, X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, practice YouTube, personal YouTube, and TikTok. A cumulative online presence score was then calculated for each surgeon.
CTSNet (98.2%), LinkedIn (78.9%), and ResearchGate (57.4%) were the most frequently used online platforms. X/Twitter (32.7%) was the most popular social media platform. There were no differences in online platform utilization by subspecialty, practice type, or training pathway; however, differences did exist by sex, geographic region, and level of experience. Females more frequently used Facebook and Instagram. Surgeons in the Southwest were more likely to use Facebook and Instagram, as well as to have a personal website. Early-career surgeons had a higher median cumulative online presence score and were more active on X/Twitter, while mid-career surgeons were more likely to use LinkedIn.
Virtually all (99.6%) of cardiothoracic surgeons use professional networking platforms; however, social media use remains relatively low overall at 42.6%. These findings provide foundational data on how cardiothoracic surgeons engage with the online landscape to supplement their practice.
心胸外科医生使用社交媒体的情况尚未得到分析。本研究旨在探讨心胸外科医生在不同亚专业、性别、地理区域、执业类型、经验水平和培训途径方面，其在线媒体使用情况有何差异。
通过查询美国胸外科医师协会的1066名成员，并随机选择223名在职执业外科医生，生成了一份包含223名心胸外科医生的名单。以标准化方式为每位外科医生搜索人口统计学信息和在线平台信息。评估的平台包括执业网站、个人网站、CTSNet、领英、ResearchGate、维基百科、X/推特、脸书、照片墙、执业YouTube、个人YouTube和抖音。然后为每位外科医生计算累积在线活跃度得分。
CTSNet（98.2%）、领英（78.9%）和ResearchGate（57.4%）是使用最频繁的在线平台。X/推特（32.7%）是最受欢迎的社交媒体平台。在在线平台使用方面，亚专业、执业类型或培训途径不存在差异；然而，在性别、地理区域和经验水平方面确实存在差异。女性更频繁地使用脸书和照片墙。西南部的外科医生更有可能使用脸书和照片墙，也更有可能拥有个人网站。早期职业外科医生的累积在线活跃度得分中位数更高，在X/推特上更活跃，而中期职业外科医生更有可能使用领英。
几乎所有（99.6%）心胸外科医生都使用专业社交平台；然而，总体而言，社交媒体的使用率仍然相对较低，为42.6%。这些发现提供了关于心胸外科医生如何利用网络环境来补充其实践的基础数据。
