The Digital Footprint of Academic Urologists: Where Do we Stand?

OBJECTIVE: To characterize the digital footprint of academic urologists by examining their web search results and identifying patterns within them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Faculty lists were obtained from the top 10 ranked Urology residency program websites. A standardized Google search for "First Name Last Name Degree" was then completed for each staff physician. The total number of results and type of sites returned were recorded and patterns contained within identified. RESULTS: A total of 247 staff physicians were identified, with 13-36 per institution. A median of 11 (interquartile range: 10-12) search results returned for each person. Most (number = 231) staff had at least 1 rating site returned, with a mean of 3.50 (standard deviation: 1.45) noted. Overall, 3.44 (1.39) pages related to the practice were listed. Social media use was poorly visible, with a median 0 [0-1] results listed and only 7 Twitter accounts observed. More than half of sites, 6.34 (1.87) on average, were physician-controllable content. Having certain types of results was significantly associated with fewer ratings sites. Having an additional degree was also associated with significantly fewer ratings sites and more sites with physician-controllable content. CONCLUSION: The digital footprint of academic urologists contains more physician-controllable content than noncontrollable information; however, social media visibility in this group is poor. Optimization of the digital identity of academic urologists may be possible by exploiting the patterns observed in this study.