Allergy & ENT Associates PLLC

Despite the growth of social media in healthcare, the appropriateness of online friendships between otolaryngological residents and attendings is poorly defined in the current literature. This issue is of growing importance, particularly as residency programs increasingly utilize social media as a means of connecting with and evaluating applicants due to limited in-person experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our objective was to better understand the prevalence of and concerns surrounding social media use between residents and faculty.

This study sent out 2 surveys in 2017 to all United States Otolaryngology residency program directors to disperse to their residents and attendings, respectively.

We received a response from 72 residents and 98 attendings. Our findings show that social media is commonly used by both residents and attendings, and most residents have at least 1 online friendship with an attending. Resident and attending opinions diverge on topics such as appropriateness of use, privacy settings, and professionalism.

We call on residency programs to delineate a transparent social media policy so applicant expectations on social media are clear.

Skin pigmentation is a complex trait that varies largely among populations. Most genome-wide association studies of this trait have been performed in Europeans and Asians. We aimed to uncover genes influencing skin colour in African-admixed individuals. We performed a genome-wide association study of melanin levels in 285 Hispanic/Latino individuals from Puerto Rico, analyzing 14 million genetic variants. A total of 82 variants with p-value ≤1 × 10−5 were followed up in 373 African Americans. Fourteen single nucleotide polymorphisms were replicated, of which nine were associated with skin colour at genome-wide significance in a meta-analysis across the two studies. These results validated the association of two previously known skin pigmentation genes, SLC24A5 (minimum p = 2.62 × 10−14, rs1426654) and SLC45A2 (minimum p = 9.71 × 10−10, rs16891982), and revealed the intergenic region of BEND7 and PRPF18 as a novel locus associated with this trait (minimum p = 4.58 × 10−9, rs6602666). The most significant variant within this region is common among African-descent populations but not among Europeans or Native Americans. Our findings support the advantages of analyzing African-admixed populations to discover new genes influencing skin pigmentation.