Attendings and residency programs looking you up on facebook

[qmcat]

Almost all of the MS3 and MS4's I know are deactivating their facebook while they are on away rotations and applying/interviewing for residency programs because they are afraid that any pictures or status updates might make them look bad. I was just wondering... couldn't this potentially backfire?

For instance, let's say that you already deactivated your facebook account, and a program director or attending wanted to look you up. But, since you have a generic name (John Doe), when the program director searches for you, a bunch of John Doe's appear and the program director thinks that one of the John Doe's, who happens to be boozing in his profile pic, is you. Wouldn't it be better in some cases, then, to keep your facebook page active, but just clean up all your pictures/statuses? Then at least when people search for you, they get the right person and can see a clean profile?

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[MDpride]

Almost all of the MS3 and MS4's I know are deactivating their facebook while they are on away rotations and applying/interviewing for residency programs because they are afraid that any pictures or status updates might make them look bad. I was just wondering... couldn't this potentially backfire?

For instance, let's say that you already deactivated your facebook account, and a program director or attending wanted to look you up. But, since you have a generic name (John Doe), when the program director searches for you, a bunch of John Doe's appear and the program director thinks that one of the John Doe's, who happens to be boozing in his profile pic, is you. Wouldn't it be better in some cases, then, to keep your facebook page active, but just clean up all your pictures/statuses? Then at least when people search for you, they get the right person and can see a clean profile?

You can make changes to your facebook settings such as not allowing people to find you during search, only friends can watch ur profile. You can also set account to restrict access to friends of friends too.

Why to deactivate account if you can change settings.

Also, change profile pics, untag urself from other prictures so that its hard for them to see those pics.

i don't have such pics so i am not worried.

 

[da8s0859q]

Almost all of the MS3 and MS4's I know are deactivating their facebook while they are on away rotations and applying/interviewing for residency programs because they are afraid that any pictures or status updates might make them look bad. I was just wondering... couldn't this potentially backfire?

For instance, let's say that you already deactivated your facebook account, and a program director or attending wanted to look you up. But, since you have a generic name (John Doe), when the program director searches for you, a bunch of John Doe's appear and the program director thinks that one of the John Doe's, who happens to be boozing in his profile pic, is you. Wouldn't it be better in some cases, then, to keep your facebook page active, but just clean up all your pictures/statuses? Then at least when people search for you, they get the right person and can see a clean profile?

I'd be more concerned about the sort of residency director who is so quick to (falsely) identify someone, common name or not, boozy picture or not, without being able to clearly see whether the FB profile in question is or isn't his applicant.

 

[hrandani]

I don't know if it was really true or not, but a few years ago when I worked in ITS for a major state university it was "common knowledge" that top companies paid facebook to gain unlimited access to the accounts of students they were interested in recruiting.

Regardless, I know for a fact if you don't want the entire world to know about it, don't put it on the internet. Emails, facebook, etc. If you put it out there, someone can forward it, and someone can trace it back to you.

 

[2012mdc]

Almost all of the MS3 and MS4's I know are deactivating their facebook while they are on away rotations and applying/interviewing for residency programs because they are afraid that any pictures or status updates might make them look bad. I was just wondering... couldn't this potentially backfire?

For instance, let's say that you already deactivated your facebook account, and a program director or attending wanted to look you up. But, since you have a generic name (John Doe), when the program director searches for you, a bunch of John Doe's appear and the program director thinks that one of the John Doe's, who happens to be boozing in his profile pic, is you. Wouldn't it be better in some cases, then, to keep your facebook page active, but just clean up all your pictures/statuses? Then at least when people search for you, they get the right person and can see a clean profile?

It's too much trouble for me but I know people who made a 2nd profile. They changed their name on the original "dirty" profile and made a new profile that was clean with only family and close friends. I guess it's a longer term solution for when fellow residents and attendings want to add you on facebook

 

[Mr hawkings]

I'd be more concerned about the sort of residency director who is so quick to (falsely) identify someone, common name or not, boozy picture or not, without being able to clearly see whether the FB profile in question is or isn't his applicant.

👍If a program director cannot tell from looking at a picture that thats not the student he/she is considering, you may not want to go there anyway. Plus i'm guessing that if your name is that common, there will be multiple hits anyway. Theres no way anyone is going to make a big decision like that without a 100% positive ID.

 

[OpalOnyx]

👍If a program director cannot tell from looking at a picture that thats not the student he/she is considering, you may not want to go there anyway.

Yea 👍 No use worrying about these kinds of twisted scenarios, if they happen - then that program probably wasn't right anyway

 

[Bluesaurus]

This is off the subject, but I've always felt that if there is an existing paper trail then it's not private (or may just be private in a temporary state.)

When Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon papers, Richard Nixon had people breaking into his psychiatrist office to obtain medical records to use against him. Census documents were supposed to never be used for identification, but the IRS has used them and FDR used them during WW2 to locate Japanese Americans. Someone might claim this stuff is private at one point in time, but that doesn't mean it will be later on.

Now you don't have to break into an office, but just look at facebook or get access to some online records you're not supposed to be seeing.

I assume that a psychiatric record could be used in a court of law against you as well. I can think of a ton of other similar circumstances.

 

[qmcat]

That's pretty interesting. I guess the main thing I'm wondering is whether there's any harm to just leaving my facebook up the way it is right now. I privatized it enough so that I, hopefully, won't get searched by sexual predators and stuff, but I know that I'm friends with some people who are friends with some attendings who work at a hospital that I want to apply to later on for residency. Since my profile is set so that friends-of-friends can search for me, I'm pretty sure that they can or already have looked me up. I don't have anything bad on my profile though, so I just wonder if it might be better to leave my profile like it is and hopefully they'll like what they see... for lack of better words.

 

[futureMD2015]

I don't know if it was really true or not, but a few years ago when I worked in ITS for a major state university it was "common knowledge" that top companies paid facebook to gain unlimited access to the accounts of students they were interested in recruiting.

That would strike me as a pretty bad privacy violation that would get facebook in a lot of trouble... I hope it's not true...

 

[Mr hawkings]

This is off the subject, but I've always felt that if there is an existing paper trail then it's not private (or may just be private in a temporary state.)

I assume that a psychiatric record could be used in a court of law against you as well. I can think of a ton of other similar circumstances.

Thats why some physicians use fake names and pay cash for mental health services so there is no paper trail leading back to them. The psychiatrists understand this and are willing to let you do this.

Can you imaging is a lawyer found out that the anesthesiologist his client is suing was treated for an addiction in the past?

 

[nlax30]

I also had several classmates change their name on facebook.

I guess I never understood that... either don't post questionable stuff online and/or keep everything private, at least as "private" as you can be online. I don't have anything on mine that I wouldn't mind programs seeing, but I also only add friends and everything is set so that only they see it. So even if a program finds me all they see is my profile image and name. Just don't see the necessity of going through setting up a 2nd account or changing names, etc...

 

[Frozen]

I also had several classmates change their name on facebook.

I guess I never understood that... either don't post questionable stuff online and/or keep everything private, at least as "private" as you can be online. I don't have anything on mine that I wouldn't mind programs seeing, but I also only add friends and everything is set so that only they see it. So even if a program finds me all they see is my profile image and name. Just don't see the necessity of going through setting up a 2nd account or changing names, etc...

Keep in mind that you are not the only person that puts content on facebook about you. What happens when your old roomate in college tags that photo of you passed out with penises drawn on your face while your on an away rotation, or writes something on your wall that looks bad?

There are settings to hide this stuff, but I remember a year or two ago, facebook changed something in the program and suddenly all the security settings were reverted to default displaying a lot more info than people had originally set their settings for. Again "what if" on an away rotation.....

 

[Jolie South]

Keep in mind that you are not the only person that puts content on facebook about you. What happens when your old roomate in college tags that photo of you passed out with penises drawn on your face while your on an away rotation, or writes something on your wall that looks bad?

There are settings to hide this stuff, but I remember a year or two ago, facebook changed something in the program and suddenly all the security settings were reverted to default displaying a lot more info than people had originally set their settings for. Again "what if" on an away rotation.....

When someone tags you, you get a notification and you can untag yourself.

If someone writes something on your wall, you can delete it.

 

[nlax30]

When someone tags you, you get a notification and you can untag yourself.

If someone writes something on your wall, you can delete it.

Exactly. If something gets put up I can just delete or untag it. And I regularly check their privacy settings for changes and adjust if needed.

 

[CardiacIntensivist]

Ugh I'm banking on the fact that my name is so generic the 500 other "Superhiro-s" that show up will hide my profile. Though to be on the safe side, I detag-ed any potentially embarrassing photos. I do have a few classmates that did change their facebook names.

 

[Samoa]

Or, you know, you could just not ever be passed out with penises drawn on your face. It's hard to post incriminating photos if none exist.

 

[Hurricane95]

It's pretty simple: make your profile maximally private, and delete/untag/get rid of anything that shouldn't be there.

Just make sure you don't have anything on there that makes you look like an alcoholic, drug-addict, whoremonger, bigot or racist and you should be fine. Even if in a rare circumstance someone managed to hack into and see your private profile, it won't matter if all they get to see is pictures of you doing normal things with your friends and significant other, trips you went on, hobbies and music you like, and other non-incriminating things. Assuming you're at least 21, even pictures of you holding a beer are fine. It's part of normal adult life as long as it's in good measure.

Remember, no one can see and find pictures that don't actually exist. If you don't want it seen, get rid of it.

 

[link2swim06]

I don't know if it was really true or not, but a few years ago when I worked in ITS for a major state university it was "common knowledge" that top companies paid facebook to gain unlimited access to the accounts of students they were interested in recruiting.

I don't believe that for a second, do you have any idea of how big of class action suit both the inquiring company and facebook would be liable, this sounds more like one of those rumors a bored IT guy made up.

 

[Deferoxamine]

I left Facebook a few years ago. I'm applying for residency right now, and I happen to have a name that's not too common, but common enough that it'll come up on Google searches with Facebook profiles on page 1. These people are not me - and they are all uglier and fatter than I am. Residency programs get a photo of me when I apply, so there's no way in hell they'll mistake those people for me.

Frankly, I'm more afraid of average laypeople and old friends of mine searching for me on Google and thinking that those model citizens on Facebook are me.

 

[Bluesaurus]

Thats why some physicians use fake names and pay cash for mental health services so there is no paper trail leading back to them. The psychiatrists understand this and are willing to let you do this.

Can you imaging is a lawyer found out that the anesthesiologist his client is suing was treated for an addiction in the past?

Yes, although psychiatric records could be used against anyone really not just physicians. When I did Psyche, the residents told me flat out that "antidepressants, particularly SSRI's, don't work any better than placebo" so it made me wonder what the point of the whole thing was. I'm still interested in finding the data behind such statements though.

Also I don't see how psychiatrists could prescribe medicine to a fake name. Maybe they could do counseling, but it seems like they prefer short visits and leave that kind of stuff to psychologists.

 

[nitemagi]

Yes, although psychiatric records could be used against anyone really not just physicians. When I did Psyche, the residents told me flat out that "antidepressants, particularly SSRI's, don't work any better than placebo" so it made me wonder what the point of the whole thing was. I'm still interested in finding the data behind such statements though.

Also I don't see how psychiatrists could prescribe medicine to a fake name. Maybe they could do counseling, but it seems like they prefer short visits and leave that kind of stuff to psychologists.

SSRI's are better than placebo for moderate to severe depression. There's conflicting data on use in mild-moderate depression. Psychiatrists do psychotherapy, though it usually doesn't pay as well by the hour as just doing med visits, though the pendulum of popularity is swinging back.

Psychotherapy records are usually considered to have a different level of confidentiality than regular medical records, and I've been instructed that they really don't have to be given over without a court order (i.e. from a judge).

As for the internet concern of privacy, I'd be more concerned over your patients looking you up than your PD. Some PD's are more internet savvy than others, though. Keep in mind everything you post online is in some capacity permanent (cached/backed up somewhere). Think about that before you post the drunken photos in the first place.

 

[Stixman28]

I left Facebook a few years ago. I'm applying for residency right now, and I happen to have a name that's not too common, but common enough that it'll come up on Google searches with Facebook profiles on page 1. These people are not me - and they are all uglier and fatter than I am. Residency programs get a photo of me when I apply, so there's no way in hell they'll mistake those people for me.

Frankly, I'm more afraid of average laypeople and old friends of mine searching for me on Google and thinking that those model citizens on Facebook are me.

There's a privacy option that makes it so that your facebook account does not come up in google searches. 👍

Also, concerning the rumor, I heard a slightly different version. When i was at a school with something like 45k ppl on the schools network, it went around that firms were paying a select few who were in the network to take a peek around. Now though, there is an option so that you dont have to allow access to your profile to everyone in your network.

 

[Bluesaurus]

What study should I read to see the benefit of SSRI's?

 

[nitemagi]

What study should I read to see the benefit of SSRI's?

While I'm not blind to the issues of publication bias or the political and financial push of drug companies, Antidepressants appear effective in moderate to severe depression. Here's a couple of studies on it.
A good JAMA article
A re-analysis of the Kirsch study

I think a more important question is for whom is it effective? Here's some possible reasons/predictors, which will likely be ready for clinical primetime in the next 5-10 years.
EEG predictors
Genetic receptor subtyping
Study design (too short)
Personality changes with SSRI's