CHARACTERIZING THE USE OF TWITTER AMONGST ACADEMIC UROLOGISTS

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The dramatic reduction of clinical and research activities within medicine during COVID-19, coupled with virtual electives and conferences, have all posed important implications within academics. Given the heavy reliance on virtual interaction during the pandemic and the active role that social media (SoMe) has, our study aims to characterize the state of SoMe use among current academic urology faculty. METHODS: We identified residency programs utilizing the American Urological Association (AUA) website. All MD/DO faculty information including gender, program location, and subspecialty training was recorded. After the designation of all faculty and their Twitter handles, Twitter Development API was set up with required authorizations and tokens. Python and R were used as the supporting language and setup using Anaconda Navigator. RESULTS: We identified 143 residency programs with a total of 2,377 faculty (1,975 males and 402 females). Among all faculty, 945 (39.75%) had registered Twitter accounts with the majority being male =760 (80.40%) vs 185 (19.60%)] (Figure 1a). Proportionately, female urologists were more likely to have a registered Twitter account (Figure 1a). Differences among specialty and SoMe use were also evident, with oncology (48%) and endourology (47.24%) among male faculty representing the highest registered user accounts (Figure 1b). When assessing registered accounts by gender across all faculty, there was no notable change during COVID (2019-2020), with peak for male faculty in 2014 (10.05% of all accounts registered) and peak for female faculty in 2015 (Figure 1c). The top five hashtags by occurrence were #prostatecancer, #urology, #bladdercancer, #covid19, and #aua19 among males, female faculty extending #sexmed as an additional common hashtag. When assessing faculty representation on Twitter, The University of Colorado (69.57%), Mayo Clinic Rochester (67.86%), and Case Western Reserve (65.22%) had the most represented faculty on SoMe proportional to the size of their program (Figure 1d). CONCLUSIONS: There is a steady increase in Twitter representation among academic urology, largely unaffected by COVID. While the majority of Twitter representation is largely skewed toward male faculty, there has been a steady increase in female faculty representation across all subspecialties over the last 16 years.

EFFECT OF COVID-19 mRNA VACCINES ON SPERM QUALITY

OBJECTIVE: Fertility related safety data was neither reported in the clinical trials nor evaluated in animal models prior to emergency use authorization (EUA) for two novel mRNA vaccines, BNT162b2 and mRNA-127.1,2 Despite excellent safety profiles for both vaccines, 44% of Americans are hesitant in receiving the vaccine. Although the specific reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy are unknown, concerns over fertility has previously decreased other vaccine uptake. As COVID-19 vaccination in the United States opens to children and adolescents, evaluating any potential impact of the vaccine on male reproduction is imperative for public reassurance. We hypothesized that since both vaccines only contain mRNA encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein without biologic ability to replicate live virus, the vaccines would not decrease semen parameters. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a single-center prospective cohort study after IRB approval from the University of Miami (#20201451). Healthy men aged 18-50 scheduled for mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in Miami, Florida were recruited.Participants provided a semen sample after 2-7 days of abstinence, prior to receiving the first dose of either vaccine and about 72 days after the second dose. Specimens were self-collected into a wide-mouth sterile container and semen analysis (SA) performed by HCLD trained andrology clinicians examined semen volume, concentration, motility, and total motile sperm count (TMSC). RESULTS: 45 men provided a semen sample. Neither median sperm concentration nor total motile sperm count (TMSC) declined post vaccination (Figure 1). There was no clinically significant change in TMSC. Only 12 (26.6%) men had a marginal decrease in TMSC. In fact, the remaining 33 (73.3%) men demonstrated normal sperm parameters. Importantly, 8 (17%) men with oligospermia prior to vaccination did not experience a decrease in spermatogenesis. Only one subject had an abnormal TMSC (TMSC ≤ 9) after vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: After receiving the two doses of the vaccines, we did not observe a clinically significant sperm parameter decline within the cohort, suggesting the vaccines do not negatively impact male fertility potential. IMPACT STATEMENT: This is the first male fertility evaluation of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, in which we found that the vaccines do not negatively impact semen parameters. (Table Presented).

Academic urology tweet performance dashboard

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic has limited in-person opportunities such as away rotations and residency interviews within academic urology. Twitter may serve as a vital tool mitigating these barriers and expanding the field. Our study aims to re-evaluate Twitter usage among academic urology programs in 2020 compared to 2009-2019. METHODS: We evaluated 83,000 tweets from 113/133 U.S. academic urology program twitter accounts during 2009-2020 through the Application Programming Interface on April 2, 2021. Text patterns were interpreted as positive, neutral, or negative via sentiment analysis. Tweets, number of followers, @mentions, hashtags, and account creations were analyzed. We captured word cloud (visualization of most frequent words) and trigram (most frequent three-word combinations) analysis. RESULTS: Our data revealed that 2020 depicted a record number of tweets (22,544) and account creations (23). For all programs, the median (IQR) number of tweets and followers was 1,748 (872- 3,051) and 2,201 (1,509-3,956). The University of North Carolina (8,707) tweeted the most. However, Johns Hopkins (5,365) had the most followers. The most frequently mentioned account in both 2009- 2019 and 2020 was the American Urological Association (@americanurological). @uro-res and @uroresidency ranked higher in 2020 than previously. Compared to 2009-2019, positive sentiment increased by 3%, while negative decreased by 2%. Word cloud analysis identified urology and resident as the most prominent words in 2020, shifting from urology and cancer (2009-2019). Trigram analysis revealed 2009-2019 tweets pertained around (risk, prostate, cancer) whereas 2020 tweets revolved around (virtual, open, house), suggesting a context shift to program recruitment. CONCLUSIONS: Our novel findings reveal that urology programs are capitalizing Twitter to promote residency recruitment and education via increased tweets and account creations, which will have far-reaching implications on urology's future.

Does social media play a role in the urology match?

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic forced many changes to the urology residency match process, including limits on in-person sub-internships and interviews. As a result, social media (SoMe) was poised to play an increased role as a mechanism for virtual interaction and information sharing. In this study we sought to better understand how SoMe was utilized by both urology residency applicants (RA) and program directors (PD), attitudes toward SoMe use, and whether SoMe use had actual benefits or harms in the match process. METHODS: Following IRB approval, surveys were sent to RA and PD via email and posted on the Google Spreadsheet “Urology Match 2021”. The survey collected demographic information as well as SoMe activity, attitudes regarding the utility of SoMe in the match, and match outcomes including interview offer rate (IOR, number of interview offers received / number of programs applied) and rank list position of the matched program. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 27. RESULTS: Of 528 registered RAs for the 2021 match and 142 PDs, 108 (21%) and 64 (45%) completed the survey, respectively. SoMe was used by 99% of RAs, but only 75% used it in the match. 78% of PDs use SoMe regularly. Both RAs and PDs indicated they feel pressure to use SoMe for professional purposes, 70% vs 50% respectively. Twitter was the most popular platform, used by 93% of RAs and 74% of PDs using SoMe. 37% of RAs and 58% of PDs felt that SoMe activity provided benefit to the applicant or program in the match process, respectively. Most RAs (59%) felt that SoMe helped them gain better insight into urology programs while only 27% of PDs believed SoMe provided them better insight into RAs. A significant correlation was found between RA perceived insight into programs and their frequency of both viewing and posting on SoMe (p = 0.00012, p = 0.004). Neither relationship was observed for PD. No significant relationship was found between SoMe viewing frequency, posting frequency or tweetorial use and the match outcomes of IOR and rank list position of matched program. Although only 5% of PD reported incorporating SoMe as part of their assessment of RA, 14% said an applicant's activity on SoMe helped their chances of matching to their program while 11% said an applicant's activity hurt their chances. CONCLUSIONS: SoMe, particularly Twitter, was widely used in the 2021 match by both RAs and PDs. A majority of RAs and PDs believed that SoMe use aided them in some way in the match process. Although PDs reported that RA activity influenced match outcomes in some cases, in the overall sample we did not find a relationship between the volume or type of RA SoMe activity with match outcomes.