Purpose of reviewWith social media use continuing to increase in popularity, ophthalmologists use social media daily for interactions with patients, colleagues, and the academic community. Recent findingsThe potential reach of social media is overwhelmingly encouraging, but academic organizations have much work to do in order to compete for viewership on social media platforms, and users need to remain vigilant of easily spread misinformation. Individual ophthalmology practices can tailor their social media presence to attract and educate patients. Using hashtags to supplement the experience of academic conferences has boosted engagement both of attendees and other interested parties. As an effective indicator of the popularity of different subjects in medicine, new studies are leveraging social media for epidemiological models. Finally, social media is emerging as a powerful tool for patient advocacy in ophthalmology. SummaryThe accessibility of social media uniquely positions it to educate patients, disseminate public eye health initiatives, and increase the reach of individual physicians. It is also able to enhance the academic experience of conferences, connecting new research colleagues, and is becoming the subject of epidemiologic studies itself. Whether using social media for patient education, research, clinical practice, or patient advocacy, ophthalmologists will find social media an increasingly important workplace contributor.

Fibromyalgia (FM) tends to coexist with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). This retrospective cohort study was conducted to determine the bidirectional association between FM and GERD, using a nationwide database, the National Health Insurance of Taiwan. We established 2 study arms, including 35,117 patients with FM in arm 1 and 34,630 patients with GERD in arm 2, newly diagnosed between 2000 and 2010. For each study arm, we randomly selected 4-fold subjects with neither FM nor GERD from the same database, frequency matched by sex, age, and diagnosis date, as the respective control cohorts. Incidence of GERD in arm 1 and incidence of FM in arm 2 were estimated by the end of 2011. The overall incidence of GERD was 1.6-fold greater in the FM cohort than in the non-FM cohort (12.0 and 7.61 per 1000 person-years, crude hazard ratio [HR] = 1.58, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.51-1.66), with an adjusted HR (aHR) of 1.27 (95% CI = 1.22-1.33) after controlling for sex, age, comorbidities, and medications. The GERD cohort ultimately had a 1.5-fold higher incidence of FM than the non-GERD cohort (5.76 vs 3.96 per 1000 person-years), with an aHR of 1.44 (95% CI = 1.29-1.60). The present study suggests a bidirectional relationship between FM and GERD. There is a greater risk of developing GERD for patients with FM than developing FM for patients with GERD.

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