TUESDAY, Sept. 22, 2009 (Health.com) — In 2007, a resident surgeon snapped a picture of a patient’s tattoo—the words Hot Rod on his penis—and shared it with colleagues, making international news when the story was leaked to the press. At least the resident didn’t post the picture on the Internet.
A new survey suggests that with the rise of blogging and sites like Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube, such a thing could happen. In fact, 60% of medical schools have had students post inappropriate or unprofessional information on the Web, according to a study in the September 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Most of the time, the information was related to the student’s own behavior, including drunken, drug-related, or sexually suggestive images or comments, as well as the use of profanity or discriminatory language. But six schools, or 13%, reported incidents in the past year that involved content that violated patient privacy. For example, some students blogged about their experiences with enough detail to identify patients, and one student posted patient details on Facebook. Most of the time other trainees told the dean about the indiscretions, but in two cases, patients or their families blew the whistle.
“We expected to find incidents of unprofessionalism, but the number was higher than expected,” says lead study author Katherine C. Chretien, MD, of the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.
Less than half of schools currently have policies in place to police or punish such behavior.
In the study, the researchers sent out anonymous surveys to medical school deans or their representatives at each institution in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)—a total of 130 schools. Of the 78 schools that responded, 47 reported ever having an incident. In the previous year, 13% of those schools reported no incidents, 78% had fewer than 5 incidents, 7% reported 5 to 15 incidents, and 2% had some incidents but did not know exactly how many.
Next page: Three students expelled
Comments (3)
Wow, that is truly amazing dude, who would have thunk it!
RT
http://www.online-privacy.us.tc
I think for a single online incident there should be no course of action, but now a days the internet plays favor in so many cases around the world why blame medical students for using resources at their fingertips.
excuse me Trevor? no course of action for a single online incident?? these idiots are breaching patients’ privacy and confidentiality and you are condoning it. i am pretty sure in their classes they are educated all about the importance of trust in the therapeutic relationship between health professional and patients. lets just hope when someone playing doctor posts information about you or your family that identifies them that you can be as forgiving as you are now :-)