Blogs, Twitter and Facebook – you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of these icons of social media, even if they don’t use them. Using social media can be fun and a good way to keep in touch with friends and family, but do you know where it can cross the line? And what about blogging? Is it harmless fun or could there be something more serious that comes out of it?
Blogging
Blogs are the new diaries and journals. For generations, people have put pen to paper to write their thoughts, ideas and experiences except now, it’s frequently online instead of in a locked diary hidden under a mattress. Of course, those locked diaries were easily unlocked and often read by annoying siblings or even intrusive parents from time to time. But blogging has not only been made easier, it has become even more public than ever, password or no password.
So, where do nurses and blogging come in? There’s a school of thought that says nurses shouldn’t blog and if they do, they should never write about their work. This invites HIPAA violations, people say. But – does it? What if a nurse writes a hypothetical case? After all, what med/surg nurse hasn’t had patient in his or her sixties, with type 2 diabetes and hypertension, who now is at risk for a below knee amputation? Would discussing this patient be a violation of privacy? It absolutely could if you identify where you work, even what city you work in. If the patient happens to be reading blogs and stumbles upon yours, it wouldn’t be a far reach to come to the conclusion that the comments are about him or her. Or, what if the nurse discusses a difficult coworker – or a hypothetical coworker. What nurse hasn’t worked with someone who micromanages everything – or is the exact opposite and you can’t pin down him or her to do anything specific?
Many nurses have blogs, some very popular ones are Emergiblog, The Makings of a Nurse, and At Your Cervix – but there are many others. Some are written by students, others by specialists.
Social Networking
Communicating through Twitter or on Facebook can be even trickier than blogging. The words you type out quickly may not be as “thought-through” as they should have been and nurses may end up writing things that perhaps were better left unsaid. At least with blogging, you can write up your post and then hold it for a while before clicking “publish.”
Business owner Mark Hayward writes for businesses and how to use social media to their advantage. He has put it very clearly: “It can take a very long time to develop a trusting follower base for your small business on Twitter but it only takes one Tweet to alienate and lose the trust of your followers.”
While Mr. Hayward is speaking to businesses, this is very much in real life as well. If you, as a nurse, maintain an online presence through Facebook or Twitter, it only takes one bad comment to lose the respect and trust of those who are following you.
So, what is right when it comes to a profession like nursing? Does your facility have any rules about social networking? Do you have a blog? How do you feel about nurses, blogging, and social networking?