The Public's Preferences on Plastic Surgery Social Media Engagement and Professionalism: Demystifying the Impact of Demographics
Cara K. Black, BA1, Kenneth L. Fan, MD1, Francis D. Graziano, MD2, James M. Economides, MD1, David H. Song, MD, MBA, FACS1.
1Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA, 2Mt Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, USA.
BACKGROUND: Social media discussions on usage and ethical implications are alive among plastic surgeons. While studies have examined how surgeons interact with patients and the public, very few have examined how the public interacts with plastic surgeons. This paper represents a primer on beginning to understand how the public would seek out plastic surgeons, how demographics shape their preferences, and where they stand in current ethical dilemmas, METHODS: An anonymous 33 question was crowdsourced via MTurk (Amazon Mechanical Turk, Seattle, WA). RESULTS:
There were a total of 527 respondents. Of respondents, 33% follow plastic surgeons on social media. Those less than 35 years old are 3.9 times more likely to follow a plastic surgeon (42 vs 16%). Google was the first place people would look for a plastic surgeon (46%). When asked what the most influential online method of selecting a surgeon, practice website ranked first (25%). Facebook was the most influential online social media platform (66%). The majority would prefer not seeing private life displayed on social media (39%). Respondents were evenly split if graphical surgical images would lead them to unfollow accounts. Most respondents would Google their surgeon (92%) and find their social media (79%). These results greatly varied greatly with age, sex, parental status, and reported country of origin.
CONCLUSIONS: Clear differences in engagement and perception exists in the public. Our results demonstrate age, sex, parental status, and country of origin leads individual to research and engage plastic surgeons and perceive ethical dilemmas differently. Readers may better understand their target demographic.
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