Another day, another story related to social networking and
medicine.
On Tuesday, Healthcare Republic reported that the Medical
and Dental Defence Union of Scotland (MDDUS) was warning doctors to take care
when using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo as it
could ‘damage their careers’.
Then today we hear of research published in JAMA saying that
doctors in America are breaching patient confidentiality by posting on social
networking sites and blogs.
Over half of the 78 US medical schools studied had reported
cases of students posting unprofessional content online. One in 10 of these
violated patient confidentiality, mostly on blogs. There were also other
postings of sexually suggestive material and photos showing drunkenness and drug use on sites like Facebook.
There are a number of GPs and nurse bloggers in the UK,
including those on this site. Some write anonymously, some not.
Such blogs provide a vital service. They are an accurate reflection of what it
is like to work on the frontline of the NHS and help their readers to
understand how policies impact on services, staff and patients. I regularly read quite a few and I have never seen anything that I feel
would breach patient confidentiality or affect the health professional’s
reputation. But it can happen.
Of course, there is never any excuse for breaching patient
confidentiality on the internet. However, JAMA‘s research was carried out among medical
students who are relatively young and, having grown up with
social networking, are more likely to post details of their lives online. Perhaps they don’t realise they risk exposing information about their patients.
They may assume these sites are relatively private and
safe; but as recent examples (such as the woman who was fired for insulting her
boss on Facebook and forgetting she was friends with him) have shown, this is
rarely the case. If you have 200 ‘followers’ or ‘friends’ who also have 200
‘followers’ or ‘friends’ it is easy to see how information can quickly spiral
into the public domain.
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