ABSTRACT
About 60% of the world population has access to the Internet in 2021, making it the main tool in fostering communication between people. Lately, digital information and communication have especially taken place on platforms known as Social Media (SoMe) or Social Networks. In the last decade the usefulness of these tools in carrying information aimed at updating professionals in Medicine and Nephrology has become evident. There are several examples of SoMe utilization in Nephrology, as demonstrated by the existing accounts or Pages operated by the main international nephrological Scientific Societies, or the most renowned specialized medical journals. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are the most versatile SoMe for these objectives; however, other platforms such as Tik Tok, Linkedin, Instagram, and WhatsApp may serve the same purpose. This digital revolution in disseminating information has proved very useful during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, even though some inappropriate uses have emerged, such as the diffusion of fake news, which has favored the emergence of "adverse effects" or a surge of antiscientific positions. In this review, we examine how physicians and nephrologists can take advantage of digital information for their continuing education. We quote the main resources in the international scenario and illustrate some specific national examples, such as the Journal Club of the Nephrology post-graduate program of the University of Milan and the Facebook group "Medical and Nephrology Community".
Subject(s)
Education, Medical, Continuing/methods , Nephrology/education , Social Media , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , Information Dissemination/methods , Internet Access/statistics & numerical data , Italy , PandemicsSubject(s)
BK Virus , Nephritis , Polyomavirus Infections , Polyomavirus , Tumor Virus Infections , Allografts , Humans , Hyperplasia/pathology , Kidney/pathology , Nephritis/etiology , Nephritis/pathology , Polyomavirus Infections/diagnosis , Polyomavirus Infections/pathology , Tumor Virus Infections/pathologyABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The number of citations of a scientific article is considered a weight of that work in the field of interest. Bibliometric analysis of the most cited articles conducted in some medical disciplines has identified the most relevant scientific contributions that pushed forward knowledge and clinical practice of that discipline. METHODS: We conducted a bibliometric analysis of the most cited articles in nephrology, by extracting relevant words that identify issues of nephrological interest and querying the Google Scholar database. A rank with the 100 most cited articles was obtained, based on the absolute number of citations. Articles were clustered in different areas of interest. RESULTS: Word(s) extracted from the Google Scholar database that restituted at least 100 000 hits were 50. The extracted 100 most cited articles collected cumulatively >285 000 citations. Nine subcategories were identified and the most populated one was 'Renal function assessment' (16 articles and 68 000 citations, 24% of total). The other relevant group of articles (16, with 46 652 citations) belonged to the category 'Randomized trials and pharmacology'. Almost 70% of the articles in the top 100 were published by eight major international journals. The top 100 list included 62 articles generated from USA scientists and the author with higher number of articles was A.S. Levey (10). CONCLUSIONS: The top 100 list of articles in nephrology helps delineate the major interests of this medical discipline. Assessment of renal functions, probably for its multidisciplinary relevance, is the heaviest topic, based on number of citations.
