IntroductionThe number of educational resources created for emergency medicine and critical care (EMCC) that incorporate social media has increased dramatically. With no way to assess their impact or quality, it is challenging for educators to receive scholarly credit and for learners to identify respected resources. The Social Media index (SMi) was developed to help address this.MethodsWe used data from social media platforms (Google PageRanks, Alexa Ranks, Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, and Google+ Followers) for EMCC blogs and podcasts to derive three normalized (ordinal, logarithmic, and raw) formulas. The most statistically robust formula was assessed for 1) temporal stability using repeated measures and website age, and 2) correlation with impact by applying it to EMCC journals and measuring the correlation with known journal impact metrics.ResultsThe logarithmic version of the SMi containing four metrics was the most statistically robust. It correlated significantly with website age (Spearman r=0.372; p<0.001) and repeated measures through seven months (r=0.929; p<0.001). When applied to EMCC journals, it correlated significantly with all impact metrics except number of articles published. The strongest correlations were seen with the Immediacy Index (r=0.609; p<0.001) and Article Influence Score (r=0.608; p<0.001).ConclusionThe SMi’s temporal stability and correlation with journal impact factors suggests that it may be a stable indicator of impact for medical education websites. Further study is needed to determine whether impact correlates with quality and how learners and educators can best utilize this tool.

The objective of this study was to develop effective strategies for hypothermic preservation of immature porcine testis tissue to maintain structural integrity and cell viability. In Experiment 1, testes from 1-week-old piglets were used to study the effects of tissue sample size (as intact testes or fragments of 100-or 30 mg) and the use of one of 9 different media on hypothermic preservation of the testis tissue for 6 days. The examined media included: Dulbecco's phosphate-buffered saline (DPBS), Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM), Leibovitz L15 (L15), L15 with fetal bovine serum (FBS, at 10%, 20% or 50%), HypoThermosol solution-FRS (HTS), Ham's F12, and Media 199. On days 0, 3, and 6, testis tissues were digested to compare the cell survival rates. Tissue sections were also semi-quantitatively assessed to determine the efficiency of different preservation strategies. There was no effect of testis sample size (P > 0.05), but cell survival rates of testis cells isolated from preserved testis tissues changed depending on the media and day (P < 0.05). Testis tissue within HTS did not show morphological changes after 6 days. In Experiment 2, two of the top performing media (20% FBS-L15 and HTS) were selected for immunocytochemical detection of gonocytes. Proportions of gonocytes (%) in isolated testis cells, however, did not differ between the two media on days 0, 3, or 6. These results show that testis tissue can be maintained for 3 days at 4 degrees C with high cell survival rate, and tissue morphology can be preserved for at least 6 days in HTS.