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Facebook faux pas and Twitter tourettes
Medicolegal adviser Dr Zaid Al-Najjar explores how translating your thoughts into cyberspeak can create trouble offline
Tweets
@SpeakFirstThinkLater I’ve just seen a patient who wanted the morning
after pill, and this is the day before. Cheeky cow! 2 hours ago
@SpeakFirstThinkLater I’ve had a shocking day, non-stop and all due to idiots who think a sore throat and a cough is going to kill them. Does no-one have any
common sense?! 1 day ago
@SpeakFirstThinkLater I’ve just had to tell a patient that we didn’t have
weighing scales robust enough. LOL 3 days ago
The problem lies in that you never know who is reading them. Facebook and Twitter are now heavyweight players in the world of social networking, so unless you have really strict security settings, you could potentially have the friend-of-a-friend reading your statement, who might happen to be a patient at your practice, or a disapproving member of the public. Before you know it, you could be the centre of
T
a GMC investigation into your fitness to practise because you’ve brought the medical profession into disrepute, or because you may have breached confidentiality, or perhaps both. Even if it wasn’t brought before the national regulator, you could be subjected to a disciplinary investigation at the PCT if a complaint was received – and I haven’t even mentioned the Information Commissioner. The other area to watch out for is posting
inappropriate material on Facebook, like photos that may bring the profession into disrepute, even if they were taken in your free time. If you do choose to post photographs, then you should be careful about both their content and your privacy settings. Medics should also be wary about posting comments about colleagues. In 2010, Gareth Compton, a Conservative politician, was arrested after he suggested on Twitter that a certain newspaper columnist should be stoned to death. Another aspect to come back and haunt doctors is accepting patients as friends. This is an almost certain recipe for disaster. When colleagues at work request your friendship or access to your Twitter account, think twice before clicking on the accept button. What are the possible consequences of the practice manager or the new receptionist viewing your profile and daily offerings? There are social networking doctors such as
“The Medical Registrar” and “Dr Rant”, who have a not inconsiderable following with their dry, dark- humoured posts that are put up for comment. Doctors who want to add their own musings need to consider what it is they are going to comment on, and whether it could get them into difficulties if the wrong person reads it. Some of the postings, although amusing, are quite controversial and would probably offend many lay people (and often doctors). The concerns of the potential problems
of such sites have been echoed recently by a warning from the BMA, publicised by the BBC, and guidance issued by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. As sessional GPs, it is arguably even more important to have very high security settings if you do belong to a social networking site, as you may well be seeing lots of new patients at many different practices, who may just fancy looking up that nice new doctor they saw today.
CHRIS PRICE/
ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
hese are just a few examples of statements that are commonly posted on Facebook or ‘tweeted’ following a bad day in surgery.
MEDICOLEGAL FEATURE
SESSIONAL GP | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 2 | 2011 | UNITED KINGDOM
www.mps.org.uk
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