• Madeline Sterling, Peggy Leung, Drew Wright, and Tara F Bishop.
• M. Sterling is fellow, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York. P. Leung is resident, Department of Medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York. D. Wright is librarian, Samuel J. Wood Library & C. V. Starr Biomedical Information Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York. T.F. Bishop is associate professor, Division of Healthcare Policy and Economics, Department of Healthcare Policy and Research, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York.
• Acad Med. 2017 Jul 1; 92 (7): 1043-1056.

PurposeDespite the growing presence of social media in graduate medical education (GME), few studies have attempted to characterize their effect on residents and their training. The authors conducted a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature to understand the effect of social media on resident (1) education, (2) recruitment, and (3) professionalism.MethodThe authors identified English-language peer-reviewed articles published through November 2015 using Medline, Embase, Cochrane, PubMed, Scopus, and ERIC. They extracted and synthesized data from articles that met inclusion criteria. They assessed study quality for quantitative and qualitative studies through, respectively, the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument and the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies.ResultsTwenty-nine studies met inclusion criteria. Thirteen (44.8%) pertained to residency education. Twitter, podcasts, and blogs were frequently used to engage learners and enhance education. YouTube and wikis were more commonly used to teach technical skills and promote self-efficacy. Six studies (20.7%) pertained to the recruitment process; these suggest that GME programs are transitioning information to social media to attract applicants. Ten studies (34.5%) pertained to resident professionalism. Most were exploratory, highlighting patient and resident privacy, particularly with respect to Facebook. Four of these studies surveyed residents about their social network behavior with respect to their patients, while the rest explored how program directors use it to monitor residents' unprofessional online behavior.ConclusionsThe effect of social media platforms on residency education, recruitment, and professionalism is mixed, and the quality of existing studies is modest at best.

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