Comments on: Should doctors friend their patients on Facebook?

By: rhon91

rhon91 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:44:47 +0000

Im a nurse and connected with many co-workers and a few of my favorite docs on FB. My neurologist and GI doc are also my FB friends. I dont have an issue with it because I dont put anything out there incredibly personal. I utilize it for political interests mainly and the incidental day to day issues. I am who I am whether with friends or my doctors that just happen to also treat me. I understand where the boundaries are.

By: Nuclear Fire

Nuclear Fire — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:01:40 +0000

Fire him as your dentist. Have your records transfered to another dentist. Ask him out.

By: AnonymousQuestion

AnonymousQuestion — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:06:40 +0000

So I’ve been reading this thread discussion and now I have a question for everyone here: I’m in my mid twenties, have a new dentist that’s around my age (who is cute and single) and I stumbled on his Facebook profile.. should I request him as a friend, or would that be awkward?

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:37:48 +0000

How about simply adding your patients as “friends” but only giving them access to limited information in your profile? You can prohibit them from seeing notes, photos, blogs, etc very easily, eliminating the need to create two profiles.

By: Dr Bikash

Dr Bikash — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:54:21 +0000

This definitely is a problem. But more so for student doctors like me who are at the cross road of being a student as well as a blogger. I for instance now have very little existence as a blogger or as a doctor(undergoing internship). But I am active in social networks like Orkut.
Friends and relatives are one thing, but in the professional life I am definitely going to meet many new people. As people in India are jumping on to social networking so many of my future patients will be in Orkut, Facebook or Myspace.
It will then be embarrasing to have your personal life, fun and pictures shared.
The only solution apart from having a separate profile page for personal and professional page is to restrict people viewing your personal information, images, scraps etc. All of these sites have those options . One needs to find them out only.

By: Nuclear Fire

Nuclear Fire — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:48:55 +0000

@ SocialNets101: Hospitals are not the bosses of independent physicians. They have no right limiting physicians social networking activities that aren’t done in hospital property. Trying to be “prescriptive” about that would lose business and support from the medical staff.

By: SocialNets101

SocialNets101 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:07:02 +0000

By Facebook’s EULA you are NOT allowed to maintain 2 profiles, so they are free to shut one or the other down or both.

It will be fun to see when residents complaining about staff become attendings and forget to delete old posts.

Oh, and the insurance disputes showing the attending was playing golf and billing for being at the OR at the same time.

Its disconcerting hospitals are not prescriptive about this.

off-topic: An obvious avenue of research i dont see being done is to combine EMR records with queries to facebook, twitter, linkedin and the likes, and get group behavior correlations (e.g. drinking problems, abusive behavior, life habits…). Of course insurance can capitalize on it really easily.: “Add your med insurance ‘ app’ or ‘robot’ as a friend in facebook and qualify for 5% discount next month”
Or legal agencies looking at malpraxis risk probabilities based on network behavior.

By: Jack Chary

Jack Chary — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:47:40 +0000

Social media is meant to be exactly that-social. Its use professionally is, I think, sometimes suspect anyway. When you have to censor your content because you’re afraid of what your patients will think it’s time to censor your friends list instead.

By: Bernice Remage

Bernice Remage — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:46:29 +0000

I have to agree in the need to separate clearly your personal and professional relationships with your patients. Physicians are entitled to a personal life that isn’t well known to their patient list, and opening the doors to your personal Facebook account is going to shut down any opportunity of being able to use that social media to share time with the friends you have outside of work. A good rule of thumb: If you have to censor your Facebook posts because you don’t want to give the wrong impression, that person probably doesn’t belong on your friends list.

By: David Cohen

David Cohen — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:44:16 +0000

This is a major concern for all professionals, and should be considered carefully. Social media like Facebook is a great way for doctors to keep their patients up to date on what’s going on with their practice, but it can be abused in many, many ways. Sometimes it’s best to keep a public, professional profile and restrict your relationship with your clientele to the office.