Keeping It Professional With Social Media
The advent of social media lets you instantaneously communicate with vast numbers of people. Individuals use social media platforms—including blogs, Facebook, and Twitter—to update their followers and friends with anything from personal anecdotes to professional accomplishments. In just seconds, other Internet users have the option to “like” a post on Facebook or to “retweet” a comment on Twitter; your news can travel immediately.
As a social media user, you may have wondered how to balance sharing your professional messages with the personal updates you post when “off duty.” It’s actually wise to use caution when posting in either space, as these accounts can easily collide.
Social media users should post only what they’re willing for anyone to see—professional contacts as well as personal ones. As Clinical Scholar Ryan Greysen, MD, MA, details in his study “Online Professionalism and the Mirror of Social Media,” a group of doctors giving medical aid in Haiti posted pictures of themselves to Facebook; in the pictures, they held containers of alcohol and gave a carefree “thumbs up” while standing in front of their unaware patients. The pictures, posted without those patients’ permission, spread quickly among millions of online users.
In the health professions, occupation-related posting can sometimes be tricky. For doctors, it goes without saying that posting images and quotations or detailing interactions with patients without their consent should be avoided. Violating doctor/patient confidentiality may land doctors and medical professionals in legal trouble. For example, in 2009, medical employees at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, California, were fired after posting pictures of a stab-wound victim on Facebook.
Many social media users don’t realize that while they can delete information they’ve posted, social networking sites like Facebook still retain ownership rights of the content that was posted. Once it enters cyberspace, it’s there permanently. With interactive Web 2.0 constantly growing, the ability to share news, medical innovations, studies, and even personal anecdotes is wonderfully widespread. So keep sharing—just think before you click.