The American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards have a social media policy (PDF).

 

 

it advises having duel social media presence, one private, one public.

  • Can we compartmentalize the professional from the private self? 
    • If we can, should we?
    • Does this just encouraging inauthenticity and hypocrisy?
  • Can we share non-hurtful private fun (including medicine’s ‘morbid humor’) without broadcasting it to outside observers who may misunderstand or misuse?

Other social media policies:

THINK by Margaret Chisolm

True

Helpful

Inspiring

Necessary

Kind


Social Media Professionalism For Nephrologists - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

A great 10 commandments of Social Media from the Royal College of General Practitioners (PDF)

We can over index on guidelines, 

“Guidelines seem to at worst insult our intelligence, and at best state the obvious. ‘Don’t post photos of yourself doing illegal things’ and ‘Don’t post identifiable information about patients’ are covered by common sense. I once saw a poster in a hospital that said ‘Never post anything related to work online’. What does that mean? Don’t mention medicine?”
— Ashleigh Witt


 

Simple mantras (Jhaveri/Sparks/Topf policy on social media interactions)

  • AVOID patient identifiable information online
  • MONITOR your internet presence
  • SEPARATE professional and personal accounts online
  • HELP other physicians be ethical
  • ONLINE reputation matters- experiment and innovate but be mindful of negative interactions and violations.