The Ethical Use Of Social Media In Nursing

The Concept of Nursing Ethics and Social Media Nurses face many decisions each day that do not have simple black or white answers. These ethical dilemmas are not limited to the decisions we make when directly interacting with patients or other medical professionals. With the use and accessibility of social media growing every day, the internet is becoming a more and more popular forum for fun, education, politics, and even retrieving medical information. I chose the article The Ethical Use of Social Media in Nursing Practice for this reason. Social media is so easily accessible these days; people can share information about their lives and experiences through many different sites: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blogs, and so on. For some, sharing
63). Whether for educational/professional purposes or just for social purposes, it is important to prioritize the autonomy of the patient when posting. Protecting a patient’s identity is not only important for the patient, but also for the nurse. This relates to the level of professional integrity displayed by the nurse. While posting bad things about your job is downright unprofessional, posting identifying information about a patient is even more so. Henderson and Dahnke (2015, p.63) remind us that social media is a permanent record; it is important for nurses to remember that a post will remain on the internet forever and to be careful when choosing what to talk about on your
When used properly, social media can provide great educational benefits to nurses, as well as to patients (Henderson & Dahnke, 2015, p. 64). When used without proper attention or regard, social media can exploit and harm patients. As we learned in our class PowerPoint, two of the most important ethical principles in the work environment are autonomy and non-maleficence. We strive every day to abide by these principles while directly working with our patients, but we must remember to maintain this when we go home and log on to our accounts. Social media forums are great tools that can open doors to a better means of communication with people in our communities and across the globe. As nurses, our duty to protect and serve our patients does not end when we clock out of work; we must be careful with how we post on social media to ensure the protection of their identity. Overall, this article does an excellent job of addressing the current ethical issues of nursing as they relate to nurse utilization of social media. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to minimize the ethical issues and use social media for the betterment of the