Interview Question on professional boundaries regarding social media

[lightng]

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So let's say you're in a situation where a patient who was under your care gets discharged and you no longer see them. A few years later you see them, catch up with them and they want to add you on Facebook/other form of social media.

Is this okay? Why or why not?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

So let's say you're in a situation where a patient who was under your care gets discharged and you no longer see them. A few years later you see them, catch up with them and they want to add you on Facebook/other form of social media.

Is this okay? Why or why not?

The hospital I worked at and the one my wife worked at both had policies that you could not connect with patients or their families on any social media while either they were patients there or you were employed. My wife became really close with many of her patients, but with one in particular. When she quit to move across the country with me, she connected with the patient’s mother on Facebook as they no longer had a provider-patient relationship.

So I’d say that as long as there exists no provider-patient relationship, you’re in the clear. That said, as a physician it might be hard to keep that at bay, and I’d probably just refrain from that sort of thing at all.

 

[lightng]

This makes sense. And if the case arises that the patient becomes mine all over again, I would simply need to notify them that I have to delete them off social media to protect the nature of the patient-provider relationship?

 

[TypeADissection]

Gonna echo above sentiment. You're in no danger when you keep the professional part of your life separate from your personal one. It's just not worth it. Cheers.

 

[Skiiiiiing]

Nope, nope, nope, even if your part of facebook is clean, you have no idea what your friends and acquaintances might post on your wall.

 

[Ad2b]

Nope, nope, nope, even if your part of facebook is clean, you have no idea what your friends and acquaintances might post on your wall.

And you have no idea who might have some axe to grind because in the 4th grade you stole a pencil out of their pencil box and broke it in half turning that into "thief", "fraud" and something else on FB for all the world to see.

Just don't. I know of more than a few who deleted ALL social media (blogs, Twitter, FB, SC, Discord, Twitch, reddit, MS, etc.) before they applied to med school.

I know of physicians who have FB pages but they are so locked down to only their practice partners and family. Even family abandoned them

 

[calivianya]

I just wouldn't. You never know how crazy people are, really, even if you know their medical history. It's not worth it. I know lots of people (mostly nurses) who have been stalked by former patients online and/or in person. I have a fake last name on Facebook just so I'm a little bit harder to find... patients/families still find me anyway.

 

[beachesandbackroads]

I'm a RN and I just can't imagine a situation where this would ever be appropriate for me...but I also work in an inner city ED where a large percentage of my patient population is incarcerated, severely mentally ill, homeless, etc. I only share very vague details about my life with my patients--like the large region I'm from, etc.

 

[curbsideconsult]

And you have no idea who might have some axe to grind because in the 4th grade you stole a pencil out of their pencil box and broke it in half turning that into "thief", "fraud" and something else on FB for all the world to see.

Just don't. I know of more than a few who deleted ALL social media (blogs, Twitter, FB, SC, Discord, Twitch, reddit, MS, etc.) before they applied to med school.

I know of physicians who have FB pages but they are so locked down to only their practice partners and family. Even family abandoned them

Completely irrelevant to this thread, but I STILL remember in 4th grade the kid who asked to borrow my ruler and never gave it back. When I asked for it back a few days later, he denied ever having borrowed it. I didn't see him again until high school and I believe the first thing I said to him was, "Do you know you stole my ruler?" Yes, I was (am?) that person. This happened quite literally decades ago. Why do I remember these things?

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Gonna echo above sentiment. You're in no danger when you keep the professional part of your life separate from your personal one. It's just not worth it. Cheers.

Agreed. I actually just got rid of my Facebook last year so that I don't ever have to deal with any of that.