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Why Can't We Be Friends? A Case-Based Analysis of Ethical Issues with Social Media in Health Care

2015; American Medical Association; Volume: 17; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.11.peer1-1511

2376-6980

Kayhan Parsi, Nanette Elster,

Health Literacy and Information Accessibility

Against Itself Cannot Stand!" [1]This quote comes from the ever-popular '90s sitcom Seinfeld.In this classic scene, the always-put-upon George Costanza complains to his best friend Jerry about his two selves-Independent George and Relationship George.Independent George is the George that both George and Jerry love (bawdy, lying, etc.), whereas Relationship George is the identity that George maintains with his girlfriend, Susan.His concern is that if he does not create a firewall between these two identities, Relationship George will subsume Independent George.The exchange between George and Jerry humorously illustrates the real-life challenges of our brave new world of social media.Like George, who wants to maintain a boundary between his two personal ("bawdy" and relationship) identities, health care professionals are concerned about keeping their professional identities separate from their personal identities online [2].The issue of boundaries is but one of many that the use of social media raises.In fact, the ubiquitous use of social media has created a number of potential ethical and legal challenges, some of which we will cover in this article.Specifically, we will:1. Define social media; 2. highlight some recent instances of the good, bad, and ugly-social media used for good purposes, bad purposes, and plain ugly purposes; 3. outline salient professional and ethical issues; 4. review some illustrative case examples; and 5. highlight where to find recent policy recommendations.In many ways, social media is a liberating tool for millions of people throughout the world.The challenge for health care professionals is how to use social media in a responsible and thoughtful way.In this essay, we hope to foster a more reflective dialogue on both the benefits and potential risks of using social media in the health care context, particularly through a series of case vignettes. What is Social Media?A technical description of how social media works is as follows: social network sites…[are] web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2)