Table of Contents
The dynamic increase of social media platforms and their impact on human life pose critical concerns and challenges for nursing students and nurse professionals. With the digital takeover of the modern lifestyle, nurses might become less mindful of the ethical and cautious use of their social media accounts. However, social media can be a highly effective tool for nurses and patients to maintain contact with healthcare providers and nurse education purposes (Daly and Jackson, 2020). Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to strike the right balance between the professional side of the nursing occupation and the appropriate use of social media networks.
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Despite being surrounded by the immense number of online platforms, I am still not actively engaged in social media. The main reason is that I try to dedicate most of my time to education, as the nursing field and my future practice require profound knowledge and the right focus of the student. Instagram and Facebook are the most common platforms that I use daily to connect with my peers and family. There are some posts and conversations that might be considered inappropriate based on the professional standards of nursing. More specifically, I have never posted the photos of residents on my social media accounts; however, I have shared the photo of one patient that I got close with during my nursing practice. We took this photo together as my patient was leaving the hospital after a successful recovery. The main problem is that I have shared this photo and the patient’s name privately with my friend without the patient’s consent, which might violate state and federal laws that protect patient privacy and confidentiality.
Nurses are obliged to follow a standard of conduct consistent with the standards regulating the nursing profession both at work and in their personal lives. According to the nursing code of ethics, four main pillars guide nurses in their professional and personal lives. They include “autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence” (Daly and Jackson, 2020, p. 84). As such, nurse’s adherence to the critical aspects of ethics and conduct define the consequences of the professional and personal approaches to treating patients. The laws of a jurisdiction identify the following set of inappropriate disclosures on social media platforms that nurses are not allowed to do:
unprofessional and unethical behavior,
moral turpitude,
mismanagement of patient records,
disclosing a privileged communication,
confidentiality breach (NCSBN, 2018).
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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulates the use and distribution of patients’ privacy and confidentiality through federal law. Nurses deliberately violate such regulations when they are engaged in the theft of Protected Health Information (PHI) for personal use or with intent to cause harm. When such misconduct of the healthcare provider on social media is particularly outrageous, it infringes the state and federal regulations that protect the patient from abuse or exploitation.
The Christian considerations in nursing are pivotal to lead patient care with love and respect towards one another, reflecting human value and dignity. Based on my social media accounts, some areas reflect such religious beliefs that I aim to incorporate in my medical practice consistently. I try to care for those in need through my educational posts and online support for any person that seeks help online. Additionally, I provide them with emotional support and empathy to alleviate their pain and frustration. As a result, I am dedicated to every patient online and sacrifice my free time or my other needs to be there for them because to be a nurse, you must learn to sacrifice (Steele and Monroe, 2020). However, I believe I need to improve the areas of my social media that involve sharing visual content and any personal information of the patient. Also, my personal photos must align with the established ethical and patient-centric image of the nurse and avoid any inappropriate content. As a nurse, I understand that I am entirely responsible for my actio
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