Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Is the American College of Surgeons Online Communities a safe and useful venue to ask for surgical advice?

  • Published:
Surgical Endoscopy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Many surgeons rely on the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Community Forums for advice on managing complex patients. Our objective was to assess the safety and usefulness of advice provided on the most popular surgical forum.

Methods

Overall, 120 consecutive, deidentified clinical threads were extracted from the General Surgery community in reverse chronological order. Three groups of three surgeons (mixed academic and community perspectives) evaluated the 120 threads for unsafe or dangerous posts. Positive and negative controls for safe and unsafe answers were included in 20 threads, and reviewers were blinded to their presence. Reviewers were free to access all online and professional resources.

Results

There were 855 unique responses (median 7, 2–15 responses per thread) to the 120 clinical threads/scenarios. The review teams correctly identified all positive and negative controls for safety. While 58(43.3%) of threads contained unsafe advice, the majority (33, 56.9%) were corrected. Reviewers felt that a there was a standard of care response for 62/120 of the threads of which 50 (80.6%) were provided by the responses. Of the 855 responses, 107 (12.5%) were considered unsafe/dangerous.

Conclusion

The ACS Community Forums are generally a safe and useful resource for surgeons seeking advice for challenging cases. While unsafe or dangerous advice is not uncommon, other surgeons typically correct it. When utilizing the forums, advice should be taken as a congregate, and any single recommendation should be approached with healthy skepticism. However, social media such as the ACS Forums is self-regulating and can be an appropriate method for surgeons to communicate challenging problems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Mary Modahl LT, Tracey Moorhead. Doctors, Patients & Social Media. 2011. Accessed June, 2018

  2. Hamm MP, Chisholm A, Shulhan J et al (2013) Social media use among patients and caregivers: a scoping review. BMJ Open. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002819

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Greene JA, Kesselheim AS (2010) Pharmaceutical marketing and the new social media. N Engl J Med 363(22):2087–2089

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. George DR, Rovniak LS, Kraschnewski JL (2013) Dangers and opportunities for social media in medicine. Clin Obstet Gynecol 56(3):453–462

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Hamm MP, Chisholm A, Shulhan J et al (2013) Social media use by health care professionals and trainees: a scoping review. Acad Med 88(9):1376–1383

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Crocco AG, Villasis-Keever M, Jadad AR (2002) Analysis of cases of harm associated with use of health information on the internet. JAMA 287(21):2869–2871

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. DeCamp M (2012) Social media and medical professionalism: toward an expanded program. Arch Intern Med 172(18):1418–1419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Drozd B, Couvillon E, Suarez A (2018) Medical YouTube videos and methods of evaluation: literature review. JMIR Med Educ 4(1):e3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Surgeons ACo. Welcome to ACS Communities https://acscommunities.facs.org/home. Accessed April, 2017, 2018

  10. Decamp M (2012) Social media guidance, conflicts of interest, and health inequalities. Lancet 380(9840):472–473

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. McCarthy CP, DeCamp M, McEvoy JW (2018) Social media and physician conflict of interest. Am J Med 131(8):859–860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Shillcutt SK, Silver JK (2018) Social media and advancement of women physicians. N Engl J Med 378(24):2342–2345

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. George DR, Green MJ (2012) Beyond good and evil: exploring medical trainee use of social media. Teach Learn Med 24(2):155–157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Radcliffe K, Lyson HC, Barr-Walker J, Sarkar U (2019) Collective intelligence in medical decision-making: a systematic scoping review. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak 19(1):158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Woolley AW, Chabris CF, Pentland A, Hashmi N, Malone TW (2010) Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science 330(6004):686–688

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Hamm MP, Shulhan J, Williams G, Milne A, Scott SD, Hartling L (2014) A systematic review of the use and effectiveness of social media in child health. BMC Pediatr 14:138

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Adilman R, Rajmohan Y, Brooks E et al (2016) Social media use among physicians and trainees: results of a national medical oncology physician survey. J Oncol Pract. 12(1):79–80 e52-60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Bosslet GT, Torke AM, Hickman SE, Terry CL, Helft PR (2011) The patient–doctor relationship and online social networks: results of a national survey. J Gen Intern Med 26(10):1168–1174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Erzinger FL, de Araujo WJB, Ordinola AAM et al (2018) Vascular forum: collective intelligence in the resolution of vascular clinical cases. J Vasc Bras 17(3):193–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. DeCamp M (2015) Ethical issues when using social media for health outside professional relationships. Int Rev Psychiatry 27(2):97–105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Steele S, Adcock C, Steel A (2016) Ethical, legal and professional issues arising from social media coverage by UK Helicopter Emergency Medical Services. Emerg Med J 33(1):57–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Bennett KG, Berlin NL, MacEachern MP, Buchman SR, Preminger BA, Vercler CJ (2018) The ethical and professional use of social media in surgery: a systematic review of the literature. Plast Reconstr Surg 142(3):388e–398e

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Giles J (2005) Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature 438(7070):900–901

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

None of these funding sources were used for the conduction of this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, McGovern Medical School at University of Texas Health, 5656 Kelley Street, Houston, TX, 77026, USA

    Karla Bernardi, Puja Shah, Erik P. Askenasy, John A. Harvin, Lillian Huang, Stefanos G. Millas, Tamara E. Saunders, Shinil K. Shah, Tien C. Ko & Mike K. Liang

  2. Division of General Surgery, Dallas VA Hospital, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, TX, USA

    Courtney Balentine

  3. Department of Surgery, Palmetto Health Tuomey, Sumter, SC, USA

    Mark M. Crabbe

  4. Hilton Head Island, SC, USA

    Mario A. Cerame

  5. Department of Surgery, Fairfield Memorial Hospital, Fairfield, IL, USA

    Patrick Molt

  6. Division of Integrated Communications, American College of Surgeons, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jerry Schwartz

  7. Department of Surgery, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Salina, KS, USA

    Tyler G. Hughes

Authors
  1. Karla Bernardi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Puja Shah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Erik P. Askenasy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Courtney Balentine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mark M. Crabbe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Mario A. Cerame
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. John A. Harvin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Lillian Huang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Stefanos G. Millas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Patrick Molt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Tamara E. Saunders
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Shinil K. Shah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Jerry Schwartz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Tien C. Ko
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Tyler G. Hughes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Mike K. Liang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Consortia

Surgical Social Media Study Group

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karla Bernardi.

Ethics declarations

Disclosures

Dr. Erik Askenasy received associated research funding from Intuitive Surgical in the last 36 months. Dr. Shinil K. Shah received associated research grants from Neurosurgical, Medigus, and Intuitive Surgical, received honoraria from Gore for speaking, and compensation from C-SATS after serving as an expert video reviewer. Dr. Tyler G. Hughes received compensation from the American College of Surgeons for his editorial work with their online content. Dr. Karla Bernardi, Ms. Puja Shah, Dr. Courtney Balentine, Dr. Mark M. Crabbe, Dr. Mario A. Cerame, Dr. John A. Harvin, Dr. Lillian Huang, Dr. Stefanos G. Millas, Dr. Patrick Molt, Dr. Tamara E. Saunders, Mr. Jerry Schwartz, Dr. Tien C. Ko, and Dr. Mike K. Liang have no conflict of interest or financial ties to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 12 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bernardi, K., Shah, P., Askenasy, E.P. et al. Is the American College of Surgeons Online Communities a safe and useful venue to ask for surgical advice?. Surg Endosc 34, 5041–5045 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-019-07299-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-019-07299-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation