Blurring Boundaries and Online Opportunities

 

Jeanne M. Farnan and Vineet M. Arora

 

The Journal of Clinical Ethics 22, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 183-186.

 

The rising use of social media, for both clinical and nonclinical purposes, obviates the need for policy to more explicitly guide physicians, and their behaviors, in this new digital environment. The current report from the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) addresses a number of these issues, specifically the nature of interaction and representation between physicians and patients. However, given the nature of the focus of this report—the nonclinical use of the internet and social media—there are a number of issues that deserve attention, in particular encouraging education and addressing how to approach relationships among medical professionals of varying levels of training.