The General Medical Council (GMC), the regulatory body for
doctors, has today published advice
on doctors’ use of social media for the very first time.
The news comes as the Medical Defence Union, which provides
legal advice and protection for doctors reveals
that more doctors than ever have been asking for advice on use of social
media.
The GMC’s new booklet, ‘Doctors’ Use of Social Media’, is
just one of ten
sets of supplementary guidance published today by the GMC alongside
an updated edition of its
core guidance for UK doctors, Good medical practice.
The long-awaited guidance, last updated in 2006, comes into
effect on 22 April and all doctors will have to show they are complying with
the updated standards for their revalidation - the new system of regular checks
that came into force in December 2012.
Serious or persistent failure to follow GMC guidance puts a
doctor’s registration at risk.
The new GMC guidance says that doctors’ use of social media
(facebook, twitter, blogs, you tube etc) can benefit patient care by ‘engaging
people in public health and policy discussions, establishing national and
international professional networks and facilitating patients’ access to
information about health and services’.
However it also warns that ‘standards expected of doctors do
not change because they are communicating through social media rather than face
to face or through other traditional media’.
Specifically it says that doctors should be scrupulous to
maintain professional boundaries, guard patient confidentiality, treat
colleagues fairly and with respect and avoid hiding their personal identities.
Doctors who are contacted through their private profile by a
patient should explain that they cannot mix social and professional
relationships and, where appropriate, direct them to their professional
profile.
They are warned that they must not use publicly accessible
social media ‘to discuss individual patients or their care with those patients
or anyone else’; ‘must not bully, harass or make gratuitous, unsubstantiated or
unsustainable comments about individuals online’; and that ‘if you
identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should
also identify yourself by name’.
When interacting with or commenting about individuals or
organisations online, doctors ‘should be aware that postings online are subject
to the same laws of copyright and defamation as written or verbal
communications, whether they are made in a personal or professional capacity’.
The MDU, which represents over half of UK doctors, said it
received around five calls each month in 2012 from GPs and hospital doctors
with concerns about Facebook, blogs and other websites.
Common concerns included complaints and allegations made
about doctors by patients on social networking sites; friendship requests from
patients; and doctors who had found themselves in difficulties after posting
comments and images online.
MDU adviser, Dr Catherine Wills, said: ‘Social media can be
a force for good in medicine, for example, by helping doctors to network more
effectively and giving patients access to more healthcare information. But
there are risks too, particularly when it comes to maintaining boundaries with
patients and acting professionally and we are pleased that the GMC’s guidance
has addressed such a growing issue for our members.’
Doctors using social networking sites are advised by the MDU
to:
- Keep
your profile private - limit access to friends only and don't accept
requests from patients to become a friend.
- Be
professional in your comments, especially about patients or colleagues.
- Be
cautious about posting anything that may bring the profession into
disrepute.
- Be
aware that anything you upload on to a social networking site may be
distributed further than you intended.
These new GMC guidelines are most welcome and help to
clarify the legal and professional boundaries for doctors in social networking
whilst encouraging its proper use.
Doctors need to take seriously the fact that abuse of social
media could put their revalidation or registration at risk, but I hope the new
guidance from both GMC and MDU also means that many more doctors get involved
in making use of the many benefits of social media in a responsible way.
hmmm....
ReplyDeleteI use facebook a lot but purely as social networking - the discussions I get involved in there are never about work issues and I wouldn't dream of posting anything about patients or colleagues. I don't use my full name though because the privacy settings aren't fault free. I may be able to keep my profile private but my friends + relatives won't always, necessarily, and may tag me in a post that is more public - so I could be visible there, which has the potential for anyone looking for me to find my friends/relatives/location.
Do you think this will count against me for revalidation?
Read the full guidance linked above. The full context of that statement is as follows:
Delete'If you identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should also identify yourself by name.Any material written by authors who represent themselves as doctors is likely to be taken on trust and may reasonably be taken to represent the views of the profession more widely.'
I suspect it would only come into play if there was a genuine complaint about people failing to maintain professional boundaries or confidentiality, being defamatory or insulting or giving incorrect information.
thanks Peter!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a hot topic at the moment. Generally those who are opposing the GMC guidance are very vocal and those who either don't care or are in agreement (in my opinion the great majority) are not making much comment and this gives a distorted view of the range of opinions out there. A view in contrast to what is mostly being written is as follows
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2013/04/05/its-all-just-a-social-media-and-medicine-storm-in-a-teacup-says-one-surgical-tweeter/
http://surgicalopinion.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/twitter-wars-on-anonymity-of-doctors-on.html
Hope these are of interest to your readers.
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