I was part of the Pfizer COVID vaccine clinical trial in 2020. There was an app for recording some simple…
Morning Headlines 7/27/20
WELL Health Forms New Business Unit Focused on Digital Health Apps and Provides Management Update
Well Health Technologies, Canada’s third-largest EHR vendor, forms a new subsidiary focused on discovering and investing in digital health apps.
Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons
The Journal of Vascular Surgery apologizes for and retracts an article titled “Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons” after doctors complained it was discriminatory and should not have passed peer review.
StuffThatWorks nabs $9M for crowdsourced insights on health conditions
Israel-based StuffThatWorks, which combines crowdsourcing and AI to give actionable data to people with chronic diseases, raises $9 million.
I’m flabbergasted the Journal of Vascular Medicine even wrote this, none the less considered it “peer reviewed.” There’s no way to confirm if those drinks are even considered alcoholic, or to confirm exactly what it is that people are doing on their social media. What a bizarre attack at health care professionals personal lives. The only concern I have is if they can do their job and treat me. I couldn’t care less about what my PCP or NP is doing with their family and friends in their off time. What’s considered “professional” and “unprofessional” is a social construct and is consistently changing over time based on patriarchal or even outdated viewpoints. To this day people still consider minority hairstyles as “unprofessional.” I’m glad they retracted this ridiculous journal article.
As bad as the article is, its message may be unfortunately correct and critics are missing the key point – employers both current and future Google stalk like the rest of us, and depicting off-work activities could, rightfully or not, cause employment issues. Employers like have similar biases to those of the authors.
My conclusion is that residents and everybody else should use the intentionally obscure social media privacy settings to prevent uninvited people — whether stalkers, press, malpractice lawyers, or employers – from ogling those #MedBikini photos and work complaints. That would be a fun study – are those oversharing folks unaware of those, or are they just unwilling to limit their vanity exposure to an audience they have carefully approved? Why accept friend requests from non-existent strangers?
Perhaps the authors can atone for their sins by writing an article on the wise use of social media by healthcare people, which would obviously include HIPAA considerations.
I think this is the older form of cancel culture. Like firing a teacher for taking some revealing photos or judging an applicant based on them getting wild at their friends bday party. These don’t relate to employees job performance but more whether they fit the cultural conservative mold.