Carefully planned and professionally executed participation in
social media by physicians is professionally appropriate, and can
be an effective method to connect with colleagues, advance
professional expertise, educate patients, and enhance the public
profile and reputation of our profession.
Guidelines For Physicians Who Choose to Engage in the
Professional Use of Social Media
a) Physicians should be cognizant of standards of patient
privacy and confidentiality that must be maintained in all
environments, including online, and must not post identifiable
patient information online.
b) When using the Internet for social networking, physicians
should use privacy settings to safeguard personal information and
content to the extent possible, but should realize that privacy
settings are not absolute and that once on the Internet, it is
highly likely that content will remain there indefinitely. Thus,
physicians should routinely monitor their own Internet presence to
ensure that the personal and professional information on their own
sites and, to the extent possible, content posted about them by
others, is accurate and appropriate.
c) If they interact with patients on the Internet, physicians
must maintain appropriate boundaries of the patient-physician
relationship in accordance with professional ethical guidelines,
just as they would in any other context.
d) To maintain appropriate professional boundaries, it is
recommended that physicians separate personal and professional
content online. Physicians should accept patient online invitations
to connect only on a physician's professional social networking
site, and should not accept invitations from patients to connect on
personal networking sites.
e) Physicians' existing professional responsibility to hold
their colleagues to account for maintaining the profession's code
of ethics extends to behavior in online communities. Thus, when
physicians see content posted by colleagues that appears
unprofessional, they have a responsibility to bring that content to
the attention of the individual, so that he or she can remove it
and/or take other appropriate actions. If the behavior
significantly violates professional norms and the individual does
not take appropriate action to resolve the situation, the physician
should report the matter to appropriate authorities.
f) Physicians must disclose all financial or other material
relationships they have with regard to the maker or provider of
products and services they review or discuss in online communities.
This includes discussions and reviews of products and services
provided to the physician for free.
g) Physicians must recognize that online content can have a
significant impact on public trust in the medical profession, both
positively and negatively. The content that physicians post online
may also influence their reputations among patients and colleagues,
and may have consequences for their medical careers, particularly
for physicians in training and medical students.
The Massachusetts Medical Society will broadly disseminate
the guidelines on the professional use of social media to its
membership, and explore the possibility of sponsoring Continuing
Medical Education activities on the topic of the professional use
of social media by physicians.
Download the full report. (.pdf, 12 pages)Adopted by the MMS House of
Delegates, May 21, 2011
