Pathology Residencies on Social Media: What Works
By - August 19, 2025
For residency programs looking to stand out in a competitive match environment, social media has become an essential part of their toolkit. A recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology takes a deep dive into how pathology residency programs are using platforms like Instagram, Twitter (now known as X), and Facebook to engage with prospective applicants.
The study revealed that most pathology residencies are already utilizing social media, at least to some extent. And while pathology programs tended to use X the most, it was Instagram that dominated engagement numbers.
Notably, the study also found that higher-prestige programs tend to post more frequently on Instagram and X, though that prestige didn’t necessarily translate into more engagement. Instead, posts highlighting resident life drew the most interest, offering programs a unique opportunity to connect authentically with potential applicants.
To explore what these findings mean and how residency programs can apply them effectively, Critical Values spoke with the study’s lead author, Katsiaryna Khatskevich, MD, PGY-4, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina.
Dr. Khatskevich collaborated with the study’s co-authors to answer Critical Values’ questions: Clare F. Hartman, BS; Joon Cha, BS; Angela Nguyen, BS; Ashley Mason, MS; Rahul Mhaskar, MPH, PhD; and Tiffany G. Baker, MD, PhD.
More pathology programs were on X than other platforms
The study analyzed posts made by 139 anatomic and clinical pathology residency programs. A total of 32,067 posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook from January 2018 through August 2022 were reviewed. The authors discovered that most pathology programs have at least one social media account, and both posts and engagements increased significantly after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We found it very interesting how the effects of the pandemic could be seen in how programs and viewers increased interaction with each other via social media,” Dr. Khatskevich says.
Interestingly, X was the most popular social media platform. The study found that:
67.6 percent of pathology programs are on X
32.4 percent are on Instagram
20.9 percent are on Facebook
One reason these pathology programs preferred X is likely simply because of how popular it is for pathology medicine in general.
“X is the most popular platform for pathology overall,” Dr. Khatskevich says. “For example, see the popularity of the #PathTwitter hashtag on the platform.”
She points to a study done by different researchers in 2025, which found that from 2012 to 2023, there were 591,812 unique pathology-related tweets made.
Pathology residencies chose different content for each platform
The study uncovered one big surprise about how residency programs use social media.
When the research team set out to analyze the posts, they expected to see consistency across the platforms, especially with the availability of cross-posting tools.
But instead, they found that post content varied widely among platforms, with each serving a distinct role in how programs presented themselves online:
Facebook posts were person-specific
X posts had an educational focus
Instagram posts focused more on resident life
“An example of a common educational post you’d see on X is a picture of a tissue slide, with the post asking viewers for the diagnosis. The answer is posted in a later post or in the comments,” Dr. Khatskevich says. “A common resident-focused post found on Instagram is of pathology residents at a program engaged in a social activity either at work or outside of work. An example of a person-specific post on Facebook is a post congratulating a staff member for a recent award.”
Instagram engagement outperformed both Facebook and X
Despite X being the platform that residency programs use the most, Instagram saw significantly more likes and comments per post.
The study didn’t gather data on the motivation behind viewers’ interactions. However, Dr. Khatskevich says that other papers can help shed light on Instagram’s engagement levels.
“Other studies that looked into how people engage with social media platforms suggest that Instagram, being a more visual platform while X is more text-based — and Instagram allowing larger posts versus X’s smaller character limit — are some of the reasons people may engage with the platforms differently,” Dr. Khatskevich says.
In addition, the types of posts made to each platform might have an impact.
“Our study found that there were different types of post content on the two platforms, which may also contribute to the difference in engagement,” she says.
Instagram’s visual nature and focus on community may make it particularly effective for showcasing resident culture and drawing engagement from social media users.
What the data doesn’t tell us
While the study sheds light on broad trends, it does have some limitations.
For example, researchers didn’t collect data on who was actually viewing the posts. This means it’s not definitively known if engagement was driven by prospective applicants versus current residents, for example.
“While many posts are aimed at residency applicants, and likely many viewers are current or future applicants, we do not have that data,” Dr. Khatskevich says. “Further study into what kinds of viewers pathology accounts gather and what the viewers want to see would be useful in guiding programs on how to best utilize their accounts.”
In addition, Facebook and Instagram didn’t have a reels feature until 2021 and 2020, which was partway through the study’s timeline. So, the researchers weren’t able to see if there’s a difference between interactions on video posts versus text and photo posts.
“We agree it would be interesting to see the difference in viewer engagement between types of posts,” Dr. Khatskevich says.
New and changing platforms offer new questions
As platforms evolve and new ones gain traction, the social media landscape is far from settled. While the team doesn’t have a follow-up study planned, they see potential for future research. For example, the study didn’t account for the rising popularity of TikTok. It also didn’t review Twitter’s rebranding to X, since that didn’t happen until 2023.
“An increasing amount of programs are starting a TikTok account, and it would be an interesting platform for further study,” Dr. Khatskevich says. “The rebranding of Twitter to X was reported to have had a negative effect on the number of users of the social media platform, which may have impacted our results if our study continued into 2023.”
How residency programs can use this research
The results offer a glimpse into how resident program directors might craft more intentional, platform-specific strategies.
Use Instagram to showcase resident culture.
Share pathology cases and educational content on X.
Use Facebook for posts about staff awards or anniversaries.
The most prestigious programs posted more frequently on X and Instagram. If you only have time for two platforms, you might want to choose these.
Focus on Instagram if you want the most engagement from your followers.
While the study didn’t look at TikTok, more programs are engaging with TikTok or creating Instagram Reels, so you might also want to experiment with these if you have the time.
“A big takeaway for programs is that there are viewers for their posts,” Dr. Khatskevich says. “Social media could be a great tool to spread information and give a good impression of a program. And our analysis of the type of posts on each social media platform can also be used to curate what kind of content to post on each.”
