Social Media in Nursing Today
Social media plays a significant role in the lives of nurses in both their professional and personal lives. Additionally, social media is now considered a mainstream part of the process for recruiting and hiring candidates. Inappropriate or unethical conduct on social media can create legal problems for nurses as well as the field of nursing. Login to all social media sites in which you engage. Review your profile, pictures and posts. Based on the professional standards of nursing, identify items that would be considered unprofessional and potentially detrimental to your career and that negatively impact the reputation of the nursing field. In 800 words, summarize the findings of your review. Include the following: Describe the posts or conversations in which you have engaged that might be considered inappropriate based on the professional standards of nursing. Homework help – Discuss why nurses have a responsibility to uphold a standard of conduct consistent with the standards governing the profession of nursing at work and in their personal lives. Include discussion of how personal conduct can violate HIPAA or be considered unethical or unprofessional. Provide an example of each to support your answer. Based on the analysis of your social media, discuss what areas of your social media activity reflect Christian values as they relate to respecting human value and dignity for all individuals. Describe areas of your social media activity that could be improved. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required. This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion
Social Media in Nursing Today
Today social media has made a way into many people’s lives and has become an integral part of life. For a nurse, social media also play an essential role. However, the engagement that one should have on social media should still be able to reflect the professionalism of nursing. At times one might be in a situation where they engage in posts and comments that are not professional. I have been in such a case before.
Inappropriate conversation
One of the posts that did not reflect my professionalism is when an individual made a post about her cancer condition. Jane made a post about the depression they are facing and how cancer is traumatizing her (Price et al., 2018). Having once treated her, I told her that she should focus more on the Morphine and a happy pill. As a professional nurse, I realized later that this was a bridge to the privacy and confidentiality of the individual.
Conversations on social media can lead to cases of violation of the code of conduct. For instance, in the cases where a nurse is on social media and makes a comment on a client who is her patient might lead to a matter of violation of confidentiality. In such instances in which the nurse comments about the medication that they are offering to the patient, then it could lead to confidentiality violation (Carroll & Bruno, 2016). The reason it could lead to such an issue is that everyone reading the comment would know about the patient’s medication and medical history. Although the nurse might make an innocent comment that is not intended at sharing any information, it might eventually contravene the code of conduct.
The importance of being ethics as a nurse
There several reasons that a nurse is supposed to uphold ethical standards. First, they help the nurse to act responsibly in their clinical decision making and action, thus maintaining competence during and even away from the career (Smith & Watson 2016). Besides, these standards help the nurses to improve their clinical practices and work areas in addition to improving the lives of the patients at the workplace (Ferguson et al., 2017). More importantly, the professional standards help and guide the clinical practice. Thus a nurse that holds on to this value would have a positive impact in their environment.
Personal conduct
In the daily behavior, there are cases where one might eventually post an issue that might lead contravention of the nurse conduct. One evening I met a friend while going home and she wanted me to help with her condition. I told her that I should take a picture of her ailing hand and make a follow up on it the following day. Later that evening a met a friend, and we discussed the issue while I showed him the photos. He went ahead to share the pictures in an online group of nurses. I later learned that this was a violation of the privacy of the individual
My social media
In many of my post, I like sharing verses of the bible that offer encouragement to any individual that might feel that they are afflicted. Besides, in my profile, I only share issues that are positive and rarely do I make insulating or demeaning comments. In the case where there is a discussion on controversial topics, I always to try to avoid such talks since one might easily be tempted to be biased.
The areas of social media that need to be improved are the comments that I make on other people’s posts. As mentioned earlier, at times, commenting on a job might cause one to be biased. Therefore, I need to be careful about the position that I make on other people’s threads. I also leant that I should be keen on the aspect that I post since I might end up sharing private information about a patient. I should thus focus on ensuring that I do not share any personal information about the patient’s treatment.
References
Carroll, C. L., & Bruno, K. (2016). Social media and free open access medical education: the future of medical and nursing education?. American Journal of Critical Care, 25(1), 93-96.
Ferguson, C., DiGiacomo, M., Saliba, B., Green, J., Moorley, C., Wyllie, A., & Jackson, D. (2016). First year nursing students’ experiences of social media during the transition to university: a focus group study. Contemporary nurse, 52(5), 625-635.
Price, A. M., Devis, K., LeMoine, G., Crouch, S., South, N., & Hossain, R. (2018). First year nursing students use of social media within education: Results of a survey. Nurse education today, 61, 70-76.
Smith, D. R., & Watson, R. (2016). Career development tips for today’s nursing academic: bibliometrics, altmetrics and social media. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(11), 2654-2661.
