Doctors should not accept Facebook requests from current and former patients and should consider using “conservative privacy settings” wherever possible, the British Medical Association has said. In new guidelines titled ‘Using social media: practical and ethical guidance for doctors and medical students’, the BMA explains that problems can arise if the boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship become blurred.

The BMA said that social media like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and internet forums could compromise their privacy and damage their professionalism. Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA’s medical ethics committee, said: “Medical professionals should be wary of who could access their personal material online, how widely it could be shared and how it could be perceived by their patients and colleagues.” It would be “wholly inappropriate” for doctors to disclose information about their patients online, Calland added. ~ Guardian, Jul 14