Abstract

Introduction:  

Social media has a profound impact on various aspects of life, including medical practices. Instagram has grown to be one of the most widely used forms of social media. This study identifies the Top 50 Instagram accounts belonging to U.S. physicians. We hypothesized that the prototypical account would belong to a board-certified plastic surgeon who publishes primarily practice-centered content (patient testimonials, procedural results).  

  

Methods:  

Heepsy’s Instagram influencer search engine was utilized on August 3rd, 2021. We composed our list of 50 accounts based on the number of followers. The Pearson correlation and Chi-square were used to analyze each account holder’s demographics. 

  

Results:  

Of the top accounts, 40% were plastic surgeons and 22% were internal medicine doctors. 42% published predominantly practice centered content. Accounts with 300k-499k and 100k-299k followers produced significantly (p<.01) more educational content. 54% lived in the western United States. 24% were female. 10% were not board-certified. 4% of physicians practice a specialty that they were not formally trained in. The number of Instagram followers positively correlated (p<.01) with the number of likes, comments, follower engagement and subscribers on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The number of female Instagram followers negatively correlated (p<.01) with the number of Facebook followers.  

 

Conclusion: 

Plastic surgery was the most represented specialty. Interestingly, the top two accounts were held by influencers who were not plastic surgeons (dermatology, family medicine). Five influencers were not board-certified and two of them were not trained in the specialty they practiced. Physicians predominantly posted practice-centered content.