Joint Statement on Gynecologic Social Media Ontologies
Last week the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) along with The American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL), American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), The International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS), International Urogynecological Association (IUGA), Society of Family Planning, Society of Gynecologic Surgeons (SGS) and The Society of Reproductive Surgeons (SRS) released the following unified statement on Gynecologic Social Media Ontologies:
“It has become increasingly apparent that social media is an integral part of the public health equation, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical misinformation is widespread (e.g., conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID vaccines), and demands an organized, concerted response by experts to rebut and combat pseudoscientific claims. We are asking for the Gynecology community to make this effort easier and more effective by collectively standardizing the way we communicate among ourselves, patients, and advocacy groups, on social media and across the Internet.
“Ontologies are the hashtag terms (e.g. #MedEd for medical education) which organize posts in social networking analytics. The aim of this joint statement is to align hashtag use in our social media community and to lower barriers of communication in the healthcare provider and patient communities. We are asking the members of our societies to use, promote, and publish these hashtags to encourage their uptake and use in scientific journals, websites, listservs, social media channels, and at our annual meetings.
“Below, find the ontologies collectively agreed upon by the represented stakeholders in gynecologic specialties. They are organized by subspecialty practice. The current list was created using a combination of expert opinion/online crowdsourcing and healthcare analytics programs for current high-usage ontologies. These ontologies will group information in such a way that makes them easily searchable by interested parties and make it possible to generate analytics on the conversations surrounding gynecologic surgery happening on social media. This list will be updated as healthcare topics trend over time.”