A recent editorial nicely summarized the challenges that the medical profession faces with the popularity of social media platforms.
As physicians and other medical providers are coming to realize, whenever you post something to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or a blog, you are creating a "digital footprint". In essence, think of yourself as "treading" through the World Wide Web and every action that you take leaving a lasting "footprint".
There are definite potential landmines for physicians who engage in the use of social media. Interesting questions posed and points made included:
- Do public postings of unprofessional content (eg. your being intoxicated) also apply to when you are not working?
- There is some degree of detachment when posting online content, because you are merely typing on a screen and not engaged with a face-to-face conversation. This may give users a sense of disinhibition when publishing material. This may then lead to inadvertent, lasting consequences (i.e. not getting a job, violating patient confidentiality, looking unprofessional).
- Whether you intent to or not, when you post anything online, unprofessional content reflects poorly not only on you but the entire medical profession.
However, social media is not all bad for the medical profession. In fact, quite the contrary. Web 2.0 technologies have enabled a huge culture shift with incredible possibilities. For example:
- Physicians are now able to serve as credible resources for medical information.
- Digital communication is more streamlined and in real-time.
- There is more transparency between public health and hospital organizations and the public.
- These tools are paramount in providing a more reflective-based and personalized learning experience for our medical students and residents.
Great quote from the paper:
"Much like a mirror, social media can reflect the best and worst aspects of the content placed before it for all to see."
Social media is here to stay and has impacted how physicians interact with the public. This paper was a nice reminder that we are still in our infancy when it comes to defining what medical professionalism is within the social media arena.
Reference
Greysen SR, Kind T, & Chretien KC (2010). Online Professionalism and the Mirror of Social Media. Journal of general internal medicine PMID: 20632121
Hello
ReplyDeleteI haven't been able to access the full paper yet. I am not sure that there is any evidence that the public make an assessment of the profession as a whole in this way. I've written much more about this in a post on my own blog.
http://wishfulthinkinginmedicaleducation.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-more-important-behaving-badly.html
What do you think?
Hey Anne Marie: Fantastic post at your site. Here's what I posted on your site.
ReplyDeleteI too grapple with the dilemma. As a general rule, I favor and value transparency - within reason. In the end, it will be up to each of us to self-regulate our public online "footprint" in the digital world. Some may feel more comfortable than others with sharing more. Others less. Each then takes his/her own risk in what is put out there. I don't think you're going to get the whole medical profession to agree on the definition of online professionalism. Heck, you probably can get 3 providers in the same room to agree! Great topic.
Also, if you email me Michelle.Lin@emergency.ucsf.edu, I'd be happy to email you the article. It's just an editorial (not much data to back things up).
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI got the paper. Many thanks for your comment on my blog :)
I completely agree that the days when we thought we would reach an agreed concept of 'professionalism' are over. Most interesting is this work by Hafferty et al on medical professionalism as a complex system.
http://sacswebsite.blogspot.com/2010/02/increasing-complexities-of.html
Some things I should blog about too!
Thanks
AM