For nursing professionals, social media can be a wonderful tool used to connect with fellow nurses, mentors, and other healthcare professionals to collaborate, share ideas, conduct research, and more. However, combining both professional and personal aspects of your life can also result with severe consequences if not approached carefully. Social media essentially puts one’s social life on display, and is especially important for nursing professionals to keep in mind at all times due to the personal nature of the profession.
Confidentiality is Crucial
Working as a medical professional means working with the personal health issues of all different types of patients, which is information that needs to be kept private at all times. In the past few years alone, there have been many issues across the nation in which nurses have discussed their patients on their social networks and even posted photos of them. This is a major violation of patients’ privacy and confidentiality, and is also against the law. Violating these laws can lead to fines, being sued, and even jail time.
Representing Employers
Not only do nursing professionals have an immense amount of trust instilled in them by patients, but they are also direct representatives of their employers. While social media is known to be home to controversial posts, nursing professionals need to keep in mind that partaking in questionable behavior on social networking sites can reflect poorly on their employer. This in turn can be grounds for termination.
Using Social Media Responsibly
The majority of employers of nursing professionals actually have a social media policy, which provides their rules, regulations and expectations of employees. It is important for nursing professionals to get familiar with this policy to make sure they know the type of behavior that is expected from employers. Along with this, a good rule of thumb for nursing professionals is to always consider the fact that what they post is a direct reflection of them as a working professional. This means using good judgment before posting anything on social media.
How do you maintain your professional image using social media?
