Acad Emerg Med. 2011 Nov;18(11):1217-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1553-2712.2011.01199.x. Epub 2011 Nov 1.
Facebook and social media networking applications use is ubiquitous across all ages and cultures. Facebook has finally begun to appear in the medical-scientific press. Today's medical literature is focused on concerns of professionalism in young health care practitioners vis-à-vis the lay public as they continuously expose themselves through this online social medium. With over 500 million users, Facebook hosts many of our patients, who are also exposed to the Internet and social media. Nobody so far has considered the opposite issue: that of physician invasion of privacy by "looking-up" a patient on Facebook during clinical practice for purposes of history-taking or diagnostic clues in situations where patients are too ill to provide needed information. We need to consider the ethical implications of privacy invasion in the current era of information technology. We need to acquire and maintain a certain level of "social media competency" to better debate the issues around Facebook and how we integrate on-line content with our patients' histories of present illness (HPI) or past medical histories (if at all).
脸书（Facebook）和社交媒体网络应用程序的使用在所有年龄段和文化中都非常普遍。脸书终于开始出现在医学科学媒体上。当今的医学文献关注的是年轻的医疗保健从业者与非专业人士之间的职业操守问题，因为他们通过这种在线社交媒介不断地暴露自己。脸书拥有超过 5 亿用户，其中包括我们的许多患者，他们也接触互联网和社交媒体。到目前为止，还没有人考虑过相反的问题：医生在临床实践中为了获取病史或诊断线索而在脸书上“查找”患者，侵犯患者隐私的问题，而此时患者病得太重，无法提供所需的信息。我们需要考虑在当前信息技术时代侵犯隐私的伦理问题。我们需要掌握和保持一定水平的“社交媒体能力”，以便更好地讨论脸书以及我们如何将在线内容与患者当前疾病史（HPI）或既往病史（如果有的话）整合在一起的问题。
