Defining a Mismatch: Differences in Usage of Social Networking Sites Between Medical Students and the Faculty Who Teach Them

Abstract

Students are more likely than faculty to use SNS and use it very differently than faculty. Students would benefit from training on appropriate use of SNS. Topics that should be addressed include editing one's online presence, managing friend requests from patients, dealing with colleagues who post harmful content, conducting Internet searches on patients, and discussion of boundaries to identify potential harms associated with SNS usage. Differences in usage between students and faculty raise questions if faculty are well suited to provide this training.

Social media, FOAMed in medical education and knowledge sharing: Local experiences with international perspective

“…Similarly, in a recent study, it was reported that medical students failed to attain the ideal in ethical and professional social media use and that lecturers are facing problems in education on this subject 34 . We believe that the social media environment will develop in a controlled and healthy manner thanks to guidelines standardizing this new open-access training media.…”

Social Media use within medical education: A systematic review to develop a pilot questionnaire on how social media can be best used at BSMS

“…For the general student then it is important for educators to integrate ethics and professionalism into their teaching as two thirds of students had noticed unprofessional material on their peers' social media profiles (Brisson et al, 2015). These were often not acted upon despite conflicting with the guidelines.…”

Using social media to enhance health professional education

“…Nonetheless, examples of unprofessional or questionable trainee behaviours on social networks have included posting evidence of being intoxicated or using illegal drugs, explicitly sharing identifiable patient information, and disclosing patients’ deeply personal stories in de‐identified fashion . Online professionalism may be problematic even for faculty members, with up to one‐third of faculty members reporting seeing unprofessional content on a colleague's online profile . When used explicitly for educational interventions, however, social media activities appear to be relatively immune to learner transgressions …”

“…Social media are ubiquitous in modern life, with the overwhelming majority of today's medical students regularly accessing social media . Not surprisingly, recent health professional education literature is teeming with suggestions on using social media professionally and educationally.…”