The 7th BJUI Social Media Awards (2019)

#EAU19 played host to the 7^th BJUI Social Media Awards in Barcelona last week and it was the best fun yet!! From our humble beginnings in the back of an Irish Bar in San Diego in 2013, we have blossomed into a swish reception on a rooftop terrace at the Crowne Plaza in Barcelona. But the spirit remains the same – urologists and allied health practitioners with an interest in social media, gathering together to meet up in person and enjoy a fun evening.

We usually alternate the Awards between the annual congresses of the American Urological Association (AUA) and of the European Association of Urology (EAU), however we retained them in Europe for two years running this time as some of us are giving the AUA a skip. Apologies AUA friends, we will be back with you next year. However it is a measure of how the EAU Annual Congress has risen that so many US uro-twitterati were in attendance again this year. #EAU19 attracted about 13,000 people from more than 100 countries, including a very healthy gathering from my adopted home country of Australia.

On therefore to the Awards. These took place on Sunday 17^th March 2019 in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Barcelona. Over 75 of the most prominent uro-twitterati from all over the world turned up to enjoy the hospitality of the BJUI and to hear who would be recognised in the 2019 BJUI Social Media Awards. Individuals and organisations were recognised across 12 categories including the top gong, The BJUI Social Media Award 2019, awarded to an individual, organization, innovation or initiative who has made an outstanding contribution to social media in urology in the preceding year. The 2013 Award was won by the outstanding Urology Match portal, followed in 2014 by Dr Stacy Loeb for her outstanding individual contributions, and in 2015 by the #UroJC twitter-based journal club. In 2017 we recognised the #ilooklikeaurologist social media campaign which we continue to promote, and in 2018 we recognised @BURSTurology.  This year our Awards Committee consisted of members of the BJUI Editorial Board – Declan Murphy, Prokar Dasgupta, Matt Bultitude, and Stacy Loeb, as well as BJUI Managing Editor Scott Millar whose team in London drive the content across our social platforms. The Committee reviewed a huge range of materials and activity before reaching their final conclusions.

The full list of winners is as follows:

• Most Read Blog@BJUI – “PRECISION delivers on the PROMIS of mpMRI in early detection of prostate cancer”. Awarded to myself!

• Most Commented Blog@BJUI – “The future of Urological Surgical Training” – Dr Daron Smith, London, UK. Accepted by Matt Bultitude.

• Most Social Paper – “Dissemination of Misinformative and Biased Information about Prostate Cancer on YouTube”. Accepted by Uro-Twitterati Royalty, Dr Stacy Loeb, and European Urology Editor-in-Chief, Prof Jim Catto.

• Best BJUI Tube Video – “Super‐mini percutaneous nephrolithotomy (SMP) vs retrograde intrarenal surgery for the treatment of 1–2 cm lower‐pole renal calculi: an international multicentre randomised controlled trial”. Accepted by the boss himself, Professor Guohua Zeng, Guangzhou, China.

• Best Urology Conference for Social Media – awarded to the EAU for #EAU19. This is the fourth time EAU have scooped this!! Continuously raising their game in social media. Accepted by Prof Jim Catto on behalf of the EAU Communications Department.

• Innovation Award – awarded to the #UroSoMe initiative, led by Dr Jeremy Teoh from Hong Kong. Outstanding campaign to bring the global uro-twitterati together.

• Best Social Media Campaign – awarded to the “#RudeFood – food porn for a purpose” campaign led by @ANZUPtrials in Australia, and championed by a number of big-name celebrity chefs in Australia. It uses the visual power of food to draw attention to #BelowTheBelt cancers. Accepted by Niranjan Sathianathen on behalf of ANZUP.

• Most Social Trainee – Awarded to Dr Daniel Christidis (1986-2018) . A very emotional award to recognise Dan, a most social trainee from Melbourne, tragically lost in a shark attack in November 2018. Collected by Sophie Rintoul-Hoad on behalf of his many friends around the world.

• Best Urology Journal – Awarded to the BJUI, specifically to trainees Abdullatif Aydin and Becky Fisher for their beautiful Visual Abstracts.

• Creativity Prize – Awarded to the @UroPoet #UroPoet initiative, introduced by Dr Brian Stork, and collected by his colleague from Michigan Dr Todd Morgan.

• The BJUI Social Media Award 2019 – Awarded to Nature Reviews Urology to recognise their vision in commissioning the piece “Both Sides of the Scalpel”, with co-authors Stephen Fry (patient) and Ben Challacombe (surgeon) describing their respective experience of managing Stephen’s prostate cancer.

This story garnered worldwide attention due to the profile of Stephen Fry and his 12.7m Twitter followers. Editor-in-Chief Annette Fenner accepted the Award, along with Ben Challacombe and Stephen Fry who sent this personalized video message.

A special thanks to our outstanding BJUI team at BJUI in London, Scott Millar and team, who manage our social media and website activity as well as the day-to-day running of our busy journal.

See you all in Washington for #AUA20 where we will present the 8th BJUI Social Media Awards ceremony!

by Declan Murphy, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia

Associate Editor, BJUI

@declangmurphy