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- Randy S D'Amico, Amanda V Immidisetti, Joshua Katz, Tim White, Anupama Bedi, Griffin Baum, Jason Ellis, Mitchell Levine, Rafael Ortiz, John A Boockvar, and David J Langer.
- Department of Neurological Surgery, Lenox Hill Hospital/Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra, New York, New York, USA. Electronic address: rdamico8@northwell.edu.
- World Neurosurg. 2021 Jun 1; 150: e445-e465.
ObjectiveTo replace educational opportunities lost during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Department of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital produced an open-access webinar series ("BRAINterns") that covered a broad range of health care topics with a focus on neurosurgery.MethodsThis 8-week webinar series ran from July 1 to August 28, 2020. An optional exit survey was distributed to participants. Data were analyzed to characterize and better understand trends among a global cohort of participants.ResultsA total of 16,484 people registered for BRAINterns, and 6675 took the survey (40.5% response rate). Responders represented 87 countries, of which the majority were from the United States and Canada (90.48%, n = 6039). Responders were primarily female (82.9%, n = 5521). Racial and ethnic representation was majority Asian (42%, n = 2798), followed by White (22.7%, n = 1514), Hispanic/Latino (16.2%, n = 1080), and Black and African American (7.7%, n = 516). Participants reported hearing about BRAINterns through various social media platforms (72.18%, n = 4818)-the most popular was TikTok (33.4%, n = 2232). Overall, 93.4% of participants reported that the course was a good use of their time during the pandemic, and 86.7% reported that the course helped replace lost opportunities.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate that webinar-based education is an effective method of expanding access to careers in medicine and in particular, neurosurgery, to traditionally underrepresented populations. Social media can be a powerful tool to combat barriers to early exposure and vastly improve diversity within the field.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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