Med students' tweets, posts expose patient info

Future doctors are too frequently putting inappropriate postings and sometimes confidential patient information on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Thirteen percent reported that students had violated patient confidentiality in postings on social networking sites. The study shows that in a survey of medical colleges, 60% reported incidents of medical students' posting unprofessional content online.

The survey also showed that 39% of colleges found medical students posting pictures of themselves being intoxicated, and 38% reported medical students posting sexually suggestive material. Of the schools that reported finding inappropriate student content only, 67% said they gave informal warnings and 7% said they expelled the student. The study, published this week, surveyed deans or their counterparts at 78 U.S. medical colleges. People are frequently warned that photos and posts, and even comments from friends and family - on sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter could come back to haunt them. Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said people who post inappropriate material, such as pictures of themselves drunk, has long been a downside of social networking.

Companies report that they check social networking sites before hiring a prospective employee, and an off-hand comment about a work project or annoying colleague can easily come back to bite someone in the office. However, when health care workers are involved in such activity, it takes on a new dimension. "Doctors are in a bit of a unique position in society - almost universally trusted by patients to hold some of their most personal information confidential," Olds said. "This relationship needs to exist, because if patients hold back information from their doctor, it can have a serious impact on their lives. And it's hard to believe that medical students, folks who are highly educated, are so stupid as to not see the downside of these social networking activities." He added that aside from posting patient information online, it's also a bad idea for medical students to post pictures of the drunken party they were at the night before or information about their latest tryst. "Even though this was probably done innocently and with no bad intent, the potential for damage to patients is large," Olds said. "Seeing their doctors partying and drunk is not the way to engender trust, particularly if you're the person who has an appointment with that doctor the next day." If patients believe their doctors are unintentionally, or, worse yet, intentionally, revealing confidential information, then that trust will be irreparable damaged.