My father is a physician by trade. He spends more time on the road going to the emergency room than he does in any other place on planet. Basically, he's obsessed with his work. In any case, the other day, my dad and I went out grocery shopping and on the way there, he randomly asked me if he should join Twitter.
I guess he must have noticed that my lower jaw had pretty much detached from my face because he immediately proceeded to qualify his statement by saying that some of his friends were on twitter and they kept sending him requests to join.
After thinking for a second, I responded with a resounding NO. Even though I absolutely detest the idea that he would he even think to join Twitter in the first place, I was actually more concerned about the ethical dilemmas that could potentially arise from having an account on a platform like Twitter.
Most professionals are inclined to put their occupations into the biography portion of their Twitter profiles. Even though it's a great networking tactic for businesses, government officials and the like, it could cause significant problems for people in the medical field - especially for those who work in the ER . This is because Twitter profiles are incredibly public platforms. Everything you post is logged into a timeline on your profile. If you just so happen to consulting with a colleague via a public platform like Twitter, then you will likely end up in gross violation of HIPAA laws as well as other ethical codes regarding patient-doctor confidentiality.
Furthermore, people tend to want quick answers to their medical questions. Twitter's 140 character messages is not sufficient to even ask a medical question, let alone to be able to answer one. Any doctor conversing with an impetuous patient on Twitter will quickly find that they have to shift their conversation to a more private location because of ethical ramifications as well as the ease of communication.
Social media is word-of-mouth in overdrive. The technology is still fairly new to a lot of people. Businesses are already struggling with surmounting the social media challenge, but the health field is not even close to being able to publicly accept social media use as a means of communication. There are hosts of ethical questions that need to be addressed before this can happen. I personally dream of a day when social media will be used to track accidents, natural disasters and disease outbreaks, but until then, I encourage health professionals to stay away from Twitter. If you need a social platform to converse with patients, use Facebook. It's a lot more private despite Zuckerberg's innumerable privacy loopholes. If you are on Twitter, then use it for your moonlighting career (if you have one) and please don't tell the world that you work in the health field. It may sound petty, but it's probably for your own good.