The Millennial Generation Plastic Surgery Trainees in sub-Saharan Africa and Social Media: A Review of the Application of Blogs, Podcasts, and Twitter as Web-based Learning Tools

The delivery of education and training in plastic surgery in Sub-Saharan Africa face increasing challenges. These include endemic shortages of plastic surgeons within postgraduate medical school faculties, the erosion of financial and clinical resources for teaching, and more recently, the millennial generation paradigm shift. It is generally accepted that the millennial generation will be more discerning and comfortable in their requirements for web-based learning content to support their education and training in plastic surgery. We reviewed current literature including original and review articles obtained through a search of PubMed database, Medline, Google Scholar, and hand searching of bibliographies of published articles using the keywords: social media, Blogs, Twitter, plastic surgery, and millennial generation. This article defines and explores Blogs, Podcasts, and Twitter, as web-based learning tools, and discusses how to leverage social media to maximize their educational value and effectiveness.