Med Students Tweeting and Blogging Patient Details

Most medical schools lack guidelines? BS There are laws regarding this, it is called HIPPA and you can get fired or lose your license if you access or post patient information. This should also apply to medical students working in a hospital since it applies to all people working in health care, from administrators to the housekeeping staff and everyone inbetween. the medical schools just don't want to enforce this among their students. sure the students work hard and they are smart but historically they get lots and lots of leeway to do whatever they want. Its up to the teachers to enforce this-but if the doctors themselves do this themselves how can they teach the students not to.

I highly doubt they are posting "patient details". More probably they are just venting about their day or sharing something particularly interesting about something they saw.

Certainly it might be possible for someone with an extra interest to maybe track down their schedule, correlate times, and determine which patient they are talking about, and this is something that should be watched out for, but its also extremely unlikely.

Doctors are people, albiet for the most part very well trained and discreet people, and sharing something interesting from their day is going to happen. Who cares. Maybe you should take better care of yourself instead of complaining about people being people.

I agree for the most part. I mean, a lot of the students are probably ranting and raving about their day but if they are putting patient details in their blogs, this could be a major problem. Not only is it violating the privacy laws that the practice has, but it is not fair to the patient, as well. If you are going to rant and rave that is fine, but don't bring the patients into it, as hard as that is to do.

hey, mark, in case you are not aware, the confidentiality of medical information is protected by federal law. "people being people" can end up in jail...and the hospital/clinic that employs them can be fined. Thank god YOU are not a medical professional..."take better care of themselves". Aren't you just the charming little sociopath. Not all doctor/hospital visits are because someone did not take care of them....and even if that is the cause, no one deserves to have some punk ass resident posting their medical information on line. Of course most residents these days are too stupid to create a coherent sentence anyway...but still...everyone deserves privacy.

they had me up until "Fox News reports"......

A few major lawsuits and/or arrests will nip this problem in the bud.

Posting about cases in which the identify of a patient is not disclosed and cannot be determined by the facts of the case is not a violation of confidentiality. It is also not a violation of HIPPA or confidentiality to vent or discuss situations as long as patient privacy is protected. I would thnk med students and grad students would know how to engage in this sort of communication without violating any laws, ethics or patient conficientialty. If students break the rules or disclose information which can be traced to a person by posting identifying information, they should be punished accordingly.

It is not "HIPPA" but rather "HIPAA" (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 )

"If it stopped them from ever being a Doctor good. There's enough Doctors in it just for themselves. mho. I've been taken care of in teaching hospitals and they're a nightmare full of loose cannons acting like kids but being Doctors with Teachers who back them up."

Wow!, that's a lot of vehemence. Apparently you had a bad experience, but I've found most (not all, but a definite majority of) doctors work incredibly hard, take enormous abuse from (understandably) stressed patients and families. The legal, financial and administrative pressures on physicians is amazing, and students are under similar pressures. As they say "Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes"

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