Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are responsible for breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality, says the American Medical Association.
According to research by the body, 13 per cent of medical-related message posted on the site are breaking confidentially agreements between doctors and patients.
The AMA also said that many medical staff were posting "unprofessional content" online. Many of the unprofessional postings cover the kinds of things you'd expect from young folks, such as drinking and obscenities. But in some instances, students went into detail about cases, to the point that patients could be identified.
According to the Associated Press, one of these incidents described a patient's case on Facebook, and another involved a student requesting an inappropriate relationship with a patient.
Survey responses came anonymously from school techers, so while instances of confidentiality breaches are rare, it's likely that more violations aren't being reported.
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For example, the study's lead author, Dr. Katherine Chretien of the VA Medical Center in Washington, searched YouTube and found students playing a prank with a dead body, though it's not known whether the body was real.
Most of the medical students that behaved badly online were given a warning, but seven percent of cases resulted in expulsion.
The bigger concern is that 62 per cent of the medical schools don't have policies to govern how students are allowed use social networking sites. And the vast majority of those schools aren't actively working on the issue, either.
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