The Potential Value of Video Abstracts to Dissemination of (Some) Information From National Association of Medical Examiners Annual General Meetings

The purpose of this study is to determine whether video abstracts posted online to a social media platform (Twitter) increased dissemination of poster-abstract content from National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) annual general meeting. At NAME meetings (2018, 2019), 20 authors accepted invitations to record visual abstracts. These were subsequently tweeted with their permission. Results were analyzed to determine how many times the video in each tweet was viewed and the number of impressions generated by the tweet. The NAME provided the number of attendees from each meeting to compare with online exposure to tweets.Video views per tweet ranged from 34 to 824 with a mean of 338. Of the 20 tweets, 5 (25%) had 600 or more views. The number of impressions per tweet ranged from 192 to 4629, with a mean of 1811. Seventy percent (14) had 500 or more impressions. Average conference participation for the meetings was 501.Given the numbers of views and even higher number of impressions, there appears to be a substantial increase in dissemination of poster abstracts beyond the conference attendees. The NAME should encourage authors of accepted abstracts to submit video summaries of their work. This will advertise forensic pathology research to a wider audience.