Creepy to add Residents on Facebook?

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I am going to be an intern in June, and our residency coordinator sent us a composite of all of our co-interns with our names and pictures. Is it weird if I try adding them as a friend on facebook?

 

[Tenk]

Yes. You will know them in several months for several years and there is always the possibility you won't want to add them on Facebook after you meet them...

 

[sliceofbread136]

I would wait to meet in person

 

[Winged Scapula]

I agree with the others.

They might see it as weird or an invasion of their privacy. You may regret doing it, even if they do accept your request. Simply being a physician is no guarantee that they will be psychologically normal.

 

[Domperidone]

Lol its always weird.
Don't be that intern.

At least for the first few months, if you do it, whenever they're like 'who's that again?" The response will be 'oh the guy who added everyone on facebook before we started'.

People use facebook to varying degrees. Some may prefer to have only close friends or work buddies. For this group if they see a request it'll be awkward to reject and awkward to accept.

You can ask if your program has traditionally allowed interns to have their own facebook groups and see if one's already set up. They can be handy for the odd shift swaps or socials.

*there's no rule against quietly stalking them on facebook to see if they're normal etc. I think we all do that.

Also, it's actually more flattering later if you add them after getting to know them a little.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I've had a couple of my co-interns FB request me already through the FB group... It's a little weird, tbh, but I don't put too much stock in it. I'll meet them soon and will unfriend them if they're weird (or they'll unfriend me 😛).

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

A piece of advice (from my years of experience, and the times when life kicked my ass with regard to this) that most people don't take but probably should.... Keep your work life and your personal life separate. I hang out with my coworkers, go to dinner with them, but they cannot see my Facebook page or any social media. If they ask to friend me, I politely decline and say I have a rule against sharing social media at work. It's saved me from many issues that my colleagues have had to face. No one at work needs to see your bikini beach photos or you drinking with your bestie. I only friended my co-residents after I had already left residency. But any current co-workers are off limits.

 

[LucidSplash]

A piece of advice (from my years of experience, and the times when life kicked my ass with regard to this) that most people don't take but probably should.... Keep your work life and your personal life separate. I hang out with my coworkers, go to dinner with them, but they cannot see my Facebook page or any social media. If they ask to friend me, I politely decline and say I have a rule against sharing social media at work. It's saved me from many issues that my colleagues have had to face. No one at work needs to see your bikini beach photos or you drinking with your bestie. I only friended my co-residents after I had already left residency. But any current co-workers are off limits.

The only caveat to this is that for most of us, residency very much blurs the lines between work and private life. Especially if you've moved to a new area, your co-residents are likely to be where your core friendships are as well. I spend more time with these people than anyone else including family. So I don't have the luxury of this strict division of work/private life, even if I wanted it.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

The only caveat to this is that for most of us, residency very much blurs the lines between work and private life. Especially if you've moved to a new area, your co-residents are likely to be where your core friendships are as well. I spend more time with these people than anyone else including family. So I don't have the luxury of this strict division of work/private life, even if I wanted it.

Completely disagree. I was also in a new area, and I went through ortho residency; you'd be hard pressed to find a more bro-like, team/camaraderie type environment. I worked 80-100 hr weeks with them, went out with them and met their families. I had plenty of friends there, they just were not my Facebook friends. And they respected my right to privacy when I told them. It is possible to have regular friendships without your friends following every f---ing aspect of your daily life.

 

[LucidSplash]

Completely disagree. I went through ortho residency; you'd be hard pressed to find a more bro-like, team/camaraderie type environment. I worked 80-100 hr weeks with them, went out with them and met their families. I had plenty of friends there, they just were not my Facebook friends. And they respected my right to privacy when I told them. It is possible to have regular friendships without your friends following every f---ing aspect of your daily life.

I'm not arguing otherwise. Perhaps we have different uses for Facebook.

 

[Pisiform]

I was added by by a future fellow intern in my program. It was weird but it's ok, I don't really care, I don't post anything on fb anyway


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[Redpancreas]

I am going to be an intern in June, and our residency coordinator sent us a composite of all of our co-interns with our names and pictures. Is it weird if I try adding them as a friend on facebook?

I'd wait until you meet in person. It shouldn't irk most people, but it may rub one or two first-worlders (the ones use creepy to describe every old person on the street who makes eye contact with them) the wrong way and for that reason, I'd just wait. Plus, it saves you from forming pre-conceived notions of the person before meeting them making life simpler.

I thought this question was for med students adding residents and for that, school-culture specific. At my school, resident's are chill and if I liked a certain resident they'll usually show up on my FB suggested and I'll add them. Not really an issue.

 

[LucidSplash]

Perhaps. My opinion is that if you friend your coworkers on Facebook, you should assume that whatever aspect of your life that you share (the good and bad) will be discussed, potentially with anyone in the hospital, including nurses, attendings, and whoever else. I've watched colleagues be severely burned by that. Personally, I don't need the PA or the nurse on floor X knowing my business, who I date, or what I had for dinner. Additionally, as a female surgeon, we are vulnerable to be talked about more than the average joe--hence why at my ortho conferences, I always hear the reps talk about which female doc they slept with, but the same doesn't happen for men. We have to tread carefully, lest our success be undermined by stupid gossip. So I just don't give anyone extra material. That's my take on it.

I agree with you completely. The thing is I don't put anything on Facebook that I don't discuss with people from work. I'm not opposed to people from work seeing my vacation ziplining photos or my latest cooking success or failure. It's my opinion that no matter how private your Facebook setting are, and mine is locked down completely, that you shouldn't put anything on their that you wouldn't want made public. I don't put relationship status or anything like that on there. So again it just may be a difference in use/comfort but my overall point is that for most residents the work life/personal life is a bit of an artificial divide.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I agree with you completely. The thing is I don't put anything on Facebook that I don't discuss with people from work. I'm not opposed to people from work seeing my vacation ziplining photos or my latest cooking success or failure. It's my opinion that no matter how private your Facebook setting are, and mine is locked down completely, that you shouldn't put anything on their that you wouldn't want made public. I don't put relationship status or anything like that on there. So again it just may be a difference in use/comfort but my overall point is that for most residents the work life/personal life is a bit of an artificial divide.

Yep. Agree

 

[LucidSplash]

I will say that the incoming interns where I will be doing my fellowship created a google group to talk about finding roommates and organizing social events. They added all the email addresses on an email sent by the GME to incoming residents and fellows. While it might be argued that the GME should have used bcc for all those emails, I thought it was a nice way for the soon to be interns to handle things. Everyone was invited to join the group but you weren't automatically added, you had to accept the invite. I didn't join because I'm living alone and will be a fellow, but I liked the idea.

 

[bannie22]

I dont think its a big deal. Some people use social media some dont. The recipient can decide to accept or not.

I dont initiate with people in the workplace tho.

 

[Bancrofti]

+1 for I don't really care. I didn't do it, because I didn't want to be "that guy," but another incoming intern in my program already added me and I didn't think twice about it.

 

[Ismet]

Just wait until you actually meet them at orientation.

 

[B_52]

I am going to be an intern in June, and our residency coordinator sent us a composite of all of our co-interns with our names and pictures. Is it weird if I try adding them as a friend on facebook?

Speaking totally from inference and not experience, but I'd say unless you're a really attractive female adding male residents; your facebook profile would potentially only contain things that a supervisor absolutely would not want to see and all the rest irrelevant.

 

[OnePunchBiopsy]

Me and one of my co-interns texted quite a bit before we sent each other friend requests.

I'm waiting to meet the others before adding them.

Keep in mind though I am not very active on FB and I don't post stuff that would destroy my career.

 

[LucidSplash]

Of not I also don't identify the hospital/program I work at anywhere in my profile. The hospital has rather strict social media policies in place where if identify where you work somewhere and separately voice a controversial opinion or post something that could be a negative association with the hospital in any even vaguely construed way, that you can be fired, even if you make it clear that this is your opinion as an individual and not that of your employer. So I think my profile says something like employed by "unnamed hospital that may or may not have a Draconian social media policy." It may be temption to put in your residency spot now that you're out of school but don't do it. Also be prepared to have a plan for if your patients look you up and try to friend you. (DON'T)

 

[LucidSplash]

I can't speak to the small town setting.

I have previously had my profile under a pseudonym at times. Currently it is under my real name which is not generic due to an unusual last name. Thus far I have only one patient attempt to friend me and while it was a patient I liked thank goodness, I have a stricter delineation between work/personal with patients than I do coworkers. But since this person was strictly a patient, I was able to message them a polite explanation that this was my personal (not professional) Facebook page and I did not communicate with patients this way and encouraged them to call the clinic if they needed to speak with me. That seemed to work well. A couple of my bosses do have public/professional pages for marketing purposes but they either only have that page and only post work-related items or they have another secret/hidden page for just friends and family. There is also a way you can hide you page so it can only be found by someone searching with your personal email address which presumably a patient would not have. For my part, I will likely go back to my pseudonym again when I start my job search and suspect I will leave it that way indefinitely. Besides my pseudonym is my middle name turned into a vascular nerd joke and it makes me snicker to myself at my nerdiness which I enjoy.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

I'm curious what has worked for you (and any other physicians who feel like chiming in) on this issue. I have my first and middle name only, both of which are incredibly generic/common individually and in combination, and haven't had any issues with it so far with clients/patients at prior healthcare jobs. What works best to prevent people from finding you in the first place, and how do you approach the issue if they do find your profile?

Also, I'm leaning towards practicing in a rural/small town setting, where realistically some of my patients may also be in my social circle because there's just not that many doctors and not that many people. It seems like lines might be blurred in that situation? How should that be handled?

Well, Facebook has a feature that allows your page to be hidden from public search. So only my friends can see mine, ever. The only other way to find me would be through a mutual friend. So searching for me doesn't yield anything; I test this once in a while, by having a non-friend attempt to find my name. Seems to work well.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

I agree with the others.

They might see it as weird or an invasion of their privacy. You may regret doing it, even if they do accept your request. Simply being a physician is no guarantee that they will be psychologically normal.

This is true. I'm not psychologically normal.

 

[anbuitachi]

add them after you meet them if you want

 

[Hakuna Matata]

The day after match day all of the upper level residents and incoming interns all added me on Facebook. Including several faculty members. They also added me to several groups specifically for the residents/interns to discuss things. Maybe it depends on your specialty or program or whatnot as to how common this is. I didn't not initiate any of the adds though. And I only post things on Facebook that I wouldn't mind the entire world seeing so it isn't an issue for me.


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[Winged Scapula]

This is true. I'm not psychologically normal.

As I suspected. 😉