Medical TWEETments

From TIME
Are Med-Student Tweets Breaching Patient Privacy?
By ALICE PARK Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925430,00.html

Take a non-medic’s advice. Read and understand the first sentence in this TIME article – this will be the single most informative statement for anyone who uses the internet for whatever reasons.

Chances are, you have been reading these sorts of articles regularly on all these important magazines. Forget how Barack Obama used Twitter for his presidential campaign and health-care issues, or how Perez Hilton / Ashton Kutcher have become so ‘hip’ by having flocks of followers on their Tweeter. The sets of our private lives (via our social-networking pages) and our work life have been overlapping more than ever since the day it became cool to use Facebook, have MySpace and Tweeting around. And now, it appears the issue is getting serious – because some medics (students presumably) may not have observed the regulations and somehow exploited the confidentiality of their patients through witless statements or disposals through their Facebook and Twitter.

These types of incidents are not novel: in a recent NEWSWEEK article, US military has considered banning the use of the social websites, lest that important information may be leaked through one of two tweets or silly posts.

The speed and efficiency of social websites can not be underestimated. Yet the misuse of these pages has aroused important issues that requires detailed discussions. We are at a transitive state where this type of trend starts to entangle with our daily or even professional life, and there will be important ethical issues to consider. The situation is very much reminiscent of the dawn of genetic engineering - people who are not in the field will start to ask a lot of questions and wonder how it might have affected them. Indeed, these types of issues concerning privacy should serve as important topics in bio-ethics, for which all of us should be aware of.

That is a long way to go for the development of social websites. But one thing is obvious: your personal page (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace…) represents your online CV. Anyone, including your boss, a potential employer, your FRENEMY, or a no-body , may get access to any of your information, including those you don’t mean to share for real. I am no big brother, but I am sure someone is WATCHING you.

By Ed Law 23/9/2009 ^o^