Out of bounds

Social media tools are– or at least should be – fundamentally rewriting the rule book when it comes to boundary issues for physicians. As one pediatrician who is active on Twitter recently told me “There is only one me.”

While maintaining a distinct divide between professional and personal life has always been a central tenet of the rules and regulations that govern the medical profession (not dating your patients while in a doctor/patient relationship being the prime example), for those physicians using social media it is abundantly clear the issue is no longer clear-cut.

Nowhere has this situation been better stated  than in the recent viewpoint “Social Media and Physicians’ Online Identity Crisis” published in JAMA, Aug. 14 (v.310, no: 6, 581-582).

Authors Matthew DeCamp, Thomas Koenig and Margaret Chisolm (@whole_patients) confront the whole professional/personal divide directly and bluntly state attempting to have such a divide when using social media…