Amid TikTok dances, Twitter memes and Instagram selfies, spine and orthopedic surgeons are carving out their own spaces in social media.
Many surgeons have used their platforms to share educational videos for patients. On TikTok, videos as short as 30 seconds explaining the basics of spine procedures rack up millions of views. Other platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, also serve as educational tools, and surgeons are able to reach patients where they are: online.
Twelve surgeons told Becker's Spine Review the ways they have taken advantage of social media and how it's helping the patients they serve.
Note: Responses were edited for style and length.
Question: How are you leveraging social media platforms at your practice or individually? What have been the outcomes?
Philip Louie, MD. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (Seattle): I think the concept of spine and orthopedic surgeon key opinion leaders is undergoing a transition of sorts in the setting of social media. There are now so many outlets with a larger audience that surgeons now have the ability to create content and publish to wide audiences. Personally, I have decided to just utilize LinkedIn for my practice, but I have maintained my Facebook and Instagram accounts for personal use. I felt it would be easier to separate my personal and work lives a bit within the social media realm.
LinkedIn has really been a fruitful social media platform for my practice. It provides me an outlet to highlight interesting cases, discuss research and academic pursuits and collaborate with various colleagues across multiple sectors. I have been able to connect with several professionals with whom I would have never been introduced to. And I have had patients who have told me that they reviewed my content on LinkedIn prior to a consultation. With that being said, I have many friends and colleagues who are heavily engaged in Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — and I love reading and watching their content! It has been interesting to see how social media has transformed practice marketing and patient education.
Sheyan Armaghani, MD. Orlando (Fla.) Health: During the initial COVID-19 lockdown, I wanted to think of ways to engage with my patients in a meaningful way. I considered Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, but I didn’t feel the education component would be fully met due to time constraints. Many of my patients were not allowed to have family members in the room with them when the pandemic started, which hindered the shared decision-making process and caused confusion for many of the patients, especially ones that were agreeing to surgery. I decided that with all the time off from canceled cases due to surges, I’d make patient-centric educational videos on my most common surgeries and conditions and post them on YouTube.
What started out as a way to help my patients understand the cause of their condition — as well as the surgical solution and common postoperative FAQs answered with a small handout that linked to my YouTube page — became videos that eventually were viewed worldwide and will generate over 1 million views in about a year. I frequently get positive comments from others who felt the visual, step-by-step explanation of each surgery helped them better prepare for their own surgery elsewhere. Others appreciated the ability to watch it over and over in case they forgot something about their postoperative care. The ability to have the information on demand is frequently commented on as well. From the surgeon point of view, it has drastically reduced phone calls to staff and confusion in postoperative instructions since it is all on a video they can watch on their smartphone.
Utilizing social media, whether it is YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or TikTok, can help educate both current and prospective patients while also giving an opportunity to allow the patient to get to know you without having to be face to face with you. I’ve found many times, patients of mine have already watched my videos and told me they feel like they already knew me through them. It helps build trust that was typically built over multiple office visits in the past before social media.
Michael Venezia, DO. Orthopedic Specialties of Tampa Bay (Clearwater, Fla.): I believe that social media has become an amazing tool to allow us to engage multiple audiences on separate platforms. Not only can we reach and educate patients, but [we can] engage our colleagues and peers about interesting cases or new research. It will continue to grow as a way to not only market yourself as a surgeon, but also as a way to continually grow in your practice and field. I have tried to purposefully work on improving my social media presence this year, and in the process have reconnected with many colleagues and met new ones that are also building their online brand. The jury is out on whether or not it directly drives patients into my practice, but the value has been immense regardless of that metric.
Robert Watkins Jr., MD. Watkins Spine (Marina Del Rey, Calif.): Our practice created a free app called Back Doctor that has a comprehensive spine rehabilitation program, a podcast station that discusses every diagnosis and treatment and a virtual consultation that shares the typical in-depth discussions we have with patients in the office. By sharing this information for free, we build trust with patients, they share with their friends and we answer most questions people have in regards to their spine health.
Thomas DeBerardino, MD. University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio: With a tertiary referral national and international practice, I find a solid presence on social media to include Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter keeps me connected to my patients near and far.
I try to post at least one and maybe two interesting cases per week to let patients know there are complaints and that possible remedies for a full functional recovery are similar to others. Because I do some unique surgeries as well, I am also communicating to my colleagues in my region and far away letting them know we do take care of patients from everywhere. I think it’s important to highlight patients' stories as well as their discrete problems and surgical and nonsurgical solutions.
Brian Cole, MD. Englewood (N.J.) Spine Associates: Social media platforms are a great platform to engage your current patients as well as future patients. Each platform speaks to a different age demographic and it is important to understand that. Everyone has a website, but it is only utilized when the user has a purpose of finding you. What about the patients who don’t know you exist? Many studies have shown we are spending more time on our mobile devices, particularly in these pandemic times. This captive audience is thirsty for content. My practice has seen a positive response to campaigns in terms of office visits. Monetarily, it is difficult to quantitate how that affects your practice bottom line, but the expense can be very economical.
Vadim Goz, MD. Reno (Nev.) Orthopedic Center: Social media has seen a significant increase in use in the spine community, and for good reason. Platforms such as Instagram and LinkedIn allow me to actively engage with potential patients, local referring providers, as well as other spine surgeons across the globe. These platforms are especially useful to help younger surgeons have an active role in those communities. Surgeons such as Chester Donnally, MD, do an outstanding job of producing engaging content. For patients and referring providers, the cases I post on social media make what I do as a spine surgeon more accessible. They see the type of surgeries a spine surgeon does and have an easy way to reach out to me for questions. I also have the opportunity to engage surgeons from across the country to have a finger on the pulse of which techniques are gaining traction across the country and outside the U.S. Overall, social media has been an invaluable tool in bringing the spine world a little closer together.
Issada Thongtrangan, MD. Microspine (Scottsdale, Ariz.): The social media platform is a powerful tool in medicine nowadays. I use different platforms for different reasons. I use the Facebook platform to directly engage with the patients or the public, mainly to make them aware of the advanced technologies and how these technologies can improve their conditions. It is also a platform where I educate the public and patients. I use LinkedIn to connect to colleagues in the same specialty or other specialties. I recently did a webinar on Zoom to educate the patient on endoscopic spine surgery using the Facebook platform as a tool to directly engage and register the patients. So far, the outcomes are good.
Brian Gantwerker, MD. The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles: Social media can be an asset to your practice life or a toxin. Some doctors pride themselves on having millions of followers. It is so interesting to me to ask them how it has translated into being better. Full disclosure: I don’t have millions of followers. I use my online presence to inform, educate and encourage followers and patients to be aware of the difficulties faced by doctors and healthcare workers.
I let my work and care speak for itself. I rarely share surgical pictures and think it is a tad self-serving and even egotistical at worst. I tend to keep my successes to myself and try to let happy patients do what they do best: refer other patients.
Sometimes my patients share their positive experiences online. I do not actively encourage them to tag me or post and let it happen organically. That outcome has been the best: letting patients just do them and say nice things about the practice. It builds a large, robust reference book they can read at their leisure when they are researching me.
Instagram I do use to encourage patients to get active, posting my weekend social activities, workouts and bike rides with my family. I do not think doctors should be bragging about what swanky new restaurant they hit. It drives a wedge between your and your patients' lives and may unintentionally drive a wedge between you.
I like to use social media to encourage other doctors, especially those facing "the system." Twitter has been great for building bridges for me and linking up with other colleagues, some of whom are very different from me politically but share a common goal of pushing back against the corporatization of medicine. Often I call out politicians and bureaucrats or even other media organizations that push the narrative that doctor’s fees are the sole driver of healthcare. They do not. Instead, doctors have been rounded up into a circular firing squad in a race to the bottom, when we should be opening the public’s eyes to the major cost driver: insurance premiums and the profit-driven fleecing of patients by insurers not paying their subscribers' medical bills.
Christopher Good, MD. Virginia Spine Institute (Reston): I never thought I would say this, but social media and healthcare are naturally going hand in hand due to the pandemic. People are more heavily relying on online sources, including social media, to make healthcare decisions.
In my practice, I use social media to engage with my patients, connect with medical colleagues across the globe and bridge the geographical gap that once existed between medical care and the prospective patient. For me, it's much more than vanity metrics like followers and likes; I'm focused on building relationships, celebrating my patients' successes and providing transparency and authenticity as a spine surgeon. There is a delicate balance to strike with social media in healthcare, and exercising the utmost respect for patient privacy and HIPAA guidelines can be challenging, but I have found it to be an effective communication tool.
Earl Kilbride, MD. St. David's HealthCare (Austin, Texas): Social media is definitely a generational phenomenon. The older physicians have to almost force the action. The power of social media can’t be underestimated. We post pics of satisfied patients, surgical cases, community outreach events and announcements. We also support, like and comment on relevant content — even our competitors. We definitely have stepped up our social media presence on both the group and individual side of the practice.
It’s hard to track the outcomes. Reviews can obviously give some trends, but an occasional low rating might skew the results for a bit. Definitely, we follow how often the posts get viewed, liked and commented. Our numbers look great. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to quantify the direct change in volumes and case mix.
Vladimir Sinkov, MD. Sinkov Spine Center (Las Vegas): I have been using Facebook and Instagram to keep people informed about the news at the practice and to promote our practice and services. I have found it very helpful and easier than I initially expected. Social media can be an amazing tool for communication and marketing if used properly.