Alok Sharan, MD, aims to democratize spine surgery research by harnessing the power of social media.
A board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. Sharan is the deputy editor of digital health transformation for Clinical Spine Surgery and co-director of Yonkers, N.Y.-based Westmed Spine Center. He recently spoke with Becker's Spine Review about launching a video abstract series for Clinical Spine Surgery authors as a way to amplify their research.
Question: Why did you launch the video abstract series?
Dr. Alok Sharan: There's a lot of knowledge generated with research printed in journals, but its reach is limited. For the busy spine surgeon, it is becoming increasingly challenging to have the time to read articles in the press. Our goal at Clinical Spine Surgery has always been to easily and conveniently provide relevant information to the practicing spine surgeon. We have found that social media is a powerful tool to disseminate the high-quality research that is being published in the journal.
Initially we started with a visual abstract series, in which a study would be distilled down to a one-slide PowerPoint/GIF describing the findings. Beyond the U.S., we are seeing a tremendous international reach, with a high concentration of readers in the Middle East.
Spine surgeons in those countries frequently don't have access to many spine journals, so they keep up with new findings primarily from visual abstracts.
In October, we began the next evolution in knowledge dissemination through the publication of a video abstract series. Authors are asked to make a video lasting less than 59 seconds describing their research. In line with current trends in social media, we have found that video abstracts are getting more hits than the visual abstracts, which gets more hits than a post made of just text.
Distilling research down to 60 seconds is difficult. Being able to do so, however, is important for spine surgeons to maximize their reach, and Clinical Spine Surgery's goal is to reach as many spine surgeons as possible.
Q: How does social media expand Clinical Spine Surgery's impact?
AS: We launched the series in October, and about 50 percent of our October authors have submitted video abstracts. All scientific journals want to be impactful, and social media is a powerful tool to overcome the translational research lag.
Q: Have you noticed any trends in the kind of research that gets the most attention?
AS: Studies on minimally invasive surgery tend to get a higher number of hits. There's a lot of interest in that area right now.