Physicians in Cyberspace: Finding Boundaries

In 2 studies, the vast majority of health care professionals used their own names on Facebook.

“Use of real names was investigated in 2 studies; in both, the vast majority of HCPs used their own names on Facebook [51,117]”

Studies showed privacy settings deployment from 71% to 97% among health care professionals.

“Studies showed privacy settings deployment from 71% to 97% among HCPs [40,42,65,66,68,96,100,115,117,118].”

Several studies demonstrated a generation gap in social media use, where students are more likely than faculty to use social media.

“Several studies demonstrated a “generation gap” in SM use, where students are more likely than faculty to use SM [114,115,117,118].”

Social media provide students, residents, and faculty a good discussion medium and an engaging way to get high-quality current information.

“SM provide for students, residents, and faculty a good discussion medium and an engaging way to get high-quality current information [79,117].”

Loosening accountability is a danger to e-professionalism from two points of view: eroding public trust by providing poor quality of information on social media and damaging the professional image.

“According to some studies in this review, loosening accountability can be seen as a danger to e-professionalism from two points of view: eroding public trust by providing poor quality of information on SM [39,106,117] and damaging to the professional image [43, 45, 51, 56, 57, 59, 64, 66, 68, 70, 73, 102, 106, 112].”

In Jafarey et al's study, almost half of faculty members found it inappropriate to friend a current student.

“In Jafarey et al’s [117] study, almost half of faculty members found it inappropriate to friend a current student, and friending patients was not acceptable for 70% of respondents, with major differences found in age groups; it was acceptable to friend patients to 31% of trainees and 62% of students compared to only 5% of faculty.”

In Jafarey et al's study, friending patients was acceptable to 31% of trainees, 62% of students, and 5% of faculty.

“In Jafarey et al’s [117] study, almost half of faculty members found it inappropriate to friend a current student, and friending patients was not acceptable for 70% of respondents, with major differences found in age groups; it was acceptable to friend patients to 31% of trainees and 62% of students compared to only 5% of faculty.”

Among physicians, the majority have legal concerns about communicating with patients through social media.

“Among physicians, the majority have legal concerns about communicating with patients through SM [78,105,117].”

In Jafarey et al's study, friending patients was not acceptable for 70% of respondents.

“In Jafarey et al’s [117] study, almost half of faculty members found it inappropriate to friend a current student, and friending patients was not acceptable for 70% of respondents, with major differences found in age groups; it was acceptable to friend patients to 31% of trainees and 62% of students compared to only 5% of faculty.”

Loosening accountability is a danger to e-professionalism from two points of view: eroding public trust by providing poor quality information on social media and damage to professional image.

“According to some studies in this review, loosening accountability can be seen as a danger on e-professionalism from two points of view, eroding public trust by providing poor quality of information on SM [39,106,117] and damage to professional image [43, 45, 51, 56, 57, 59, 64, 66, 68, 70, 73, 102, 106, 112].”

Some studies have demonstrated generation gap differences in friending patients, with younger age being associated with more openness to being friends with a patient.

“Some studies have demonstrated generation gap differences in friending patients, with younger age being associated with more openness to be friends with a patient [82,117].”