








































This is an open access article under the terms of a license that permits non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.  
© 2023 The Authors. Société Internationale d'Urologie Journal, published by the Société Internationale d'Urologie, Canada.

Key Words Competing Interests Article Information

Guidelines, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, 
podcast, YouTube, urology

None declared. Received on, December 3, 2022 
Accepted on, January 25, 2023 
This article has been peer reviewed.

Soc Int Urol J. 2023;4(2):136–138

DOI: 10.48083/RBAZ4307

Novel Methods of Social Media  
Dissemination in Urology

Nikita R. Bhatt,Nikita R. Bhatt,11 Jeremy Yuen-Chun Teoh, Jeremy Yuen-Chun Teoh,22 Vito Cucchiara, Vito Cucchiara,33 Esther Garcia Rojo, Esther Garcia Rojo,44 Claudia Mercader, Claudia Mercader,55  
Benjamin Pradere,Benjamin Pradere,66 Maria J. Ribal, Maria J. Ribal,55 Gianluca Giannarini Gianluca Giannarini77; EAU Guidelines Office Dissemination Committee; EAU Guidelines Office Dissemination Committee
1Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Norwich, United Kingdom 2Department of Surgery, S.H. Ho Urology Centre, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,  
Hong Kong 3Department of Urology, Division of Experimental Oncology, Urological Research Institute, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific 
Institute, Milan, Italy 4Department of Urology, Hospital HM Sanchinarro, Madrid, Spain 5Uro-Oncology Unit, Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain  
6Department of Urology-UROSUD, La Croix du Sud Hôpital, Quint Fonsegrives, France 7Urology Unit, Santa Maria della Misericordia University Hospital, Udine, Italy

Abstract

Social Media (SoMe) platforms are widely used by urologists with over 99% using SoMe and 63% of young urologists 
rating the influence of SoMe on knowledge acquisition as moderate to high. The urology community is abreast with 
the SoMe revolution in many ways but several new methods of SoMe dissemination remain to be explored. These 
provide an exciting future for SoMe enthusiasts in urology and beyond. In this article, the European Association 
of Urology Dissemination Committee explores these novel methods of SoMe dissemination while discussing the 
importance of maintaining quality, ethics, and reliability in SoMe and the role EAU plays in it.

Social media (SoMe) has become an integral part of our personal and professional lives. Urology as a specialty has 
embraced SoMe enthusiastically over the years, with a large presence on well-known SoMe platforms such as Twitter, 
Facebook, and YouTube[1]. These platforms are widely used by urologists, with over 99% using SoMe and 63% of 
young urologists rating the influence of SoMe on knowledge acquisition as moderate to high[2]. This has paved the 
way for several novel platforms in recent times including Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. These platforms have 
a prominent audiovisual component and have altered the way we share content on SoMe. TikTok involves sharing 
15-second videos and is one of the fastest-growing SoMe platforms with over 1.1 billion active users worldwide. The 
hashtags #urology and #urologist have 411.7 and 68.4 million views, respectively, on TikTok[3]. Similarly, #urology 
on Instagram revealed 324K posts. Videos on these platforms are most commonly published by physicians, but 
news media, independent users, and patients can also contribute to the videos. LinkedIn is a well-established online 
platform with an aim to improve networking among professionals, with several professional bodies and guideline 
associations having an online presence on LinkedIn—for example, the European Association of Urology (EAU) and 
the American Urological Association (AUA).

Existing platforms such as Twitter and Instagram are also constantly reinventing themselves to keep up with the 
changing face of SoMe. Reels are short videos, ranging from 90 seconds on Instagram to 2 minutes on Twitter, that 
provide descriptive and visually engaging content. Twitter Space allows you to have audio conversations live with 
up to 10 speakers and even record them. This would be a useful platform to have small journal clubs or in-depth 
educational discussions including guidelines and new evidence. Instagram has recently introduced a subscription 
feature on a trial basis as part of the “Precision SoMe Content,” the idea behind which is to utilize specific platforms 
to disseminate personalized and exclusive content to subscribed users[4]. Caffeine and Twitch are SoMe platforms 
that allow live video broadcast that can also be used by journals, guideline associations, and congresses around the 
world. After the COVID-19 pandemic, most congresses are using a hybrid approach to engage remote audiences. 

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SoMe platforms play a key role in remote engagement 
through live tweeting, session broadcast, and interviews. 
One such example is EAU TV during the EAU congress 
each year, which discusses highlights from the congress 
with experts in the field.

Podcasts have revolutionized dissemination of educa-
tional content, by providing an on-the-go option for 
content that is convenient and free. A search for urol-
ogy podcasts on Google Play returned over 75 relevant 
podcast channels. These include a range of urological 
association podcasts such as the EAU guidelines podcasts 
discussing guidelines with the panel members[4], AUA 
and British Association of Urological Surgeons podcasts; 
journal podcasts, for example, Journal of Urology, Brit-
ish Journal of Urology International and its knowledge 
platform (BJUI Knowledge); and educational podcasts, 
for example, GU Cast, The Urology Doc Podcast, and 
EMPIRE Urology. Podcasts also improve patient engage-
ment by providing reliable patient education on urology 
health issues, such as the Urology Care Podcast by the 
AUA. YouTube is host to several urology videos, ranging 
from educational and surgical videos to patient informa-
tion videos. A recent survey suggested that more than any 
other resource, YouTube is the most used professional 
platform for urologists and young urologists for learning 
surgical skills[5].

In addition to newer platforms, newer methods of 
disseminating content on existing platforms has been 
explored and successfully implemented. The EAU 
Guidelines Office as a pioneer of SoMe for dissemination 
of its world-renowned guidelines, used in 75 countries 
around the world, has used “awareness days campaign” 
to engage patients and their advocates[1,6,7]. By dissem-
inating relevant EAU guidelines on awareness days, for 
example, prostate cancer screening during Movember 
engagement and a separate patient information account 
(EAU Patient Information), the EAU Dissemination 
Committee has made a conscious effort to improve 
patient engagement. The Dissemination Committee 
has also implemented Urology Cheat Sheets to format 
the guidelines into the schematic and practical format, 
thereby improving uptake. These sheets serve as an 
easy-to-digest educational resource for residents and 
clinicians looking for a prompt update of their clinical 
practice. Additionally, the sheets are currently receiving 
significant social media engagement, with an average of 
30 000 impressions on Twitter alone. Posts promoting 

Abbreviations 
AUA American Urological Association
EAU European Association of Urology 
SoMe social media

the EAU Guidelines Cheat Sheets were among the ones 
with the highest impact launched from the official EAU 
account (@uroweb) in 2021 and 2022.

SoMe is a brilliant tool for education, patient engage-
ment, and networking. It has its drawbacks in terms of 
sharing of misinformation on both old and new plat-
forms. Of 55 TikTok videos with the hashtag #prostate-
cancer, 98.2% were of moderate to poor quality, 41% of 
them contained a significant amount of misinformation, 
and 10.1% of all videos had an apparent commercial 
bias[8]. These videos had accumulated 134 944 individ-
ual views. The EAU previously published a guideline 
on the use of SoMe to assist clinicians[9]. To strengthen 
our commitment to ethical application and utiliza-
tion of SoMe within urology and the wider healthcare 
community, the Dissemination Committee is drafting 
a new Guideline Chapter on SoMe utilization in health-
care[7]. The chapter provides a layout of the SoMe plat-
forms available and their potential benefits, in addition 
to an in-depth manual for using SoMe as a healthcare 
professional, with several strategies to abide by if one is 
active on SoMe in a professional capacity—for example, 
avoiding defamatory comments, knowing your employ-
er’s policies on SoMe, and avoiding self-promotion or 
advertisement[1]. The Guideline Chapter provides guid-
ance on appropriate use of SoMe analytics to ensure 
good engagement such as the effective use of hashtags. 
It also describes the current scale of the issue with SoMe 
misinformation and ways of investigating misinfor-
mation such as the DISCERN scoring system to assess 
quality of information in videos and the Certificate of 
quality Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct 
(HONcode) to standardize the quality of medical infor-
mation on the internet, among others. Suggestions are 
provided on combating misinformation by promoting 
information from reliable sources such as professional 
bodies or guidelines, and appropriately qualifying the 
content using tools such as Patient Education PEMAT 
Audio Visual tools and Global Quality Score (GQS), 
among others.

In conclusion, the urology community is abreast 
with the SoMe revolution in many ways, but several new 
methods of SoMe dissemination remain to be explored. 
These provide an exciting future for SoMe enthusiasts in 
urology and beyond. It is vital to ensure quality, ethics, 
and reliability are at the heart of our SoMe journey, and 
as such investigating the content online and auditing it 
will help us improve the content we disseminate. The 
EAU Dissemination Committee guidelines on SoMe will 
provide a much-needed etiquette for SoMe dissemina-
tion in the near future.

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