Medical Students Say Too Much Online About Patients and Themselves
Attention health care and tort lawyers: Evidence in your next medical malpractice case may be just an Internet surfing session away.
Even though patient confidentiality rules apply, medical students are posting inappropriate comments on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Some also make discriminatory comments and document sexual misconduct, reports the New York Daily News.
According to a study reported by the Journal of the American Medical Association in “Online Posting of Unprofessional Content by Medical Students”, medical schools are seeing inappropriate comments online but may not have the right policies in place to address them optimally.
Blog posts, for example, can violate patient privacy even if they don’t identify the individuals by name, reports the BBC.
