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The American College
of Surgeons (ACS) online
community platform, ACS
Communities, recently began
its third year and shows no signs
of slowing down. Under the
leadership of Tyler G. Hughes,
MD, FACS, Editor-in-Chief,
the communities have already
become one of the most popular
benefits of membership in
the College, and the network
continues to grow both in terms
of number of communities
and member engagement.
Popular member benefit
At press time, 104 ACS
Communities were online, 69 of
which are open and 35 of which
are closed. Any member may join
or leave an open community as
desired, but closed communities
are available only to members of
specific committees, governing
bodies, and so on. With more
than 23,300 members, the General
Surgery community is by far the
largest, but 36 other communities
have more than 1,000 members
each. Communities exist for
specialties and subspecialties
(for example, Colon and Rectal,
Pediatric, and Minimally Invasive
Surgery); demographic categories
(Rural Surgeons, Women
Surgeons, and so on); and for
chapters, committees, and other
areas of interest to members
of the College. There’s even an
active community for surgeons
who share a love of writing.
In terms of number of posts,
the most popular communities are
General Surgery, Breast Surgery,
Colon and Rectal Surgery, Rural
Surgery, Women Surgeons,
Endocrine Surgery, Minimally
Invasive Surgery, History of
Surgery, Trauma Surgery, and
Bariatric Surgery. The most
popular closed community is
the Board of Regents and Board
of Governors community.
Since its inception, nearly
2. 2 million pages have been
viewed by the 23,846 members
who have agreed to the
community terms of use, and
those members have logged in
more than 635,000 times. More
than 11,000 members have
uploaded their profile photos, and
more than 4,200 unique visitors
have posted 6,500 new threads to
the discussions. A total of 39,000
messages have been posted in
ACS Communities. Many of
the most popular discussion
threads have received dozens
of replies. Some of the hottest
topics during the first two years
of the ACS Communities were
Maintenance of Certification and
retirement, colon perforations,
surgical attire, robotic surgery,
current standards of care,
open cholecystectomies, board
certification, and surgical training.
An ACS mainstay
Perhaps the greatest
accomplishment of the ACS
Communities in its first two
years is that it has woven
itself into the fabric of College
members’ everyday lives.
Dr. Hughes and College staff
regularly receive correspondence
from members who say that
the ACS Communities is of
great value to them, and many
who rarely post themselves
attest to checking in on their
communities every day. More
than two-thirds of those
surgeons who visit do so via
desktop, while the rest enjoy
access via phones and tablets.
The ACS Communities app
and a responsive version of
the site make it easy to enter
the communities from mobile
devices. The average session
lasts nearly 3. 5 minutes—a lot
of time for a busy surgeon.
As ACS Communities
embarks on its third year,
improvements are planned and
more communities will emerge,
allowing members to tap into
the collective intelligence of
their colleagues even more
easily. As one member put
it, “What an exceptional
educational tool it has proven to
be, and what a great way it has
been for surgeons like me to be
able to interact with and share
ideas and experiences with so
many (frequently geographically
disparate) colleagues.” ♦
by Jerry Schwartz
ACS Communities
begins third year
