Article 1
The social networking tools
that help keep medical students in touch with friends and family could end up
being the reason they someday have a hard time finding the job they want.
A study in the Sept. 23/30 Journal
of the American Medical Association found that 60% of U.S. medical schools
surveyed reported incidents of students posting unprofessional content online.
Meanwhile, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming
the newest tools used by recruiters to identify and screen potential job
candidates, including those well out of medical school. Because of the interest
in social media, the National Assn. of Physician Recruiters has added a special
session on the subject to its annual meeting next April.
Susan Masterson, a recruiter
with Team Health in Knoxville, Tenn., said using social networking sites is a
"strategy that anyone in recruiting, whether it be physicians or
otherwise, needs to incorporate in their plan. It's here. It's here to stay.
"My concern with social
networking candidate marketing is how to manage the message consistently and
professionally. Social networking, with the word social, sometimes is not as
professional as the traditional resources we've used in the past."
Experts say that just because
you wrote a curse word online or posted a picture of yourself holding a bottle
of beer doesn't mean you've become unemployable. While there is agreement that
anything that would be considered inappropriate and unethical for a physician
to do in real life is verboten online as well, there is a lot of gray area in
what constitutes "inappropriate" conduct.
"Beyond those definite
clear-cut ones, it's very murky, and people have different opinions of what's
appropriate," said Katherine Chretien, MD, an internist at the VA Medical
Center in Washington, D.C., and co-author of the JAMA study.
Dan Rizzo, manager and master
recruiter for Schumacher Group, an emergency physician staffing company based
in Chattanooga, Tenn., said he has never seen anything so egregious that it
ruined someone's chances at a job. But he has seen postings that made him
hesitate.
What's going
on online?
According to the JAMA
study, "Online Posting of Unprofessional Content by Medical
Students," 13% of the 78 medical schools that responded to the survey
found postings that violated patient confidentiality; 52% found postings
containing profanity; 48% found postings containing discriminatory language;
39% found depictions of intoxication and 38% found sexually suggestive
material.
The results were nearly
identical to those in a similar study done more than a year ago by researchers
from the University Of Florida College Of Medicine.
After the Florida study was
released, awareness started to grow about the need to be more professional
online, said Lindsay Thompson, MD, author of that study. "I was
disappointed to see that the problem didn't go away, but [the JAMA
study's findings] didn't surprise me, to be honest," said Dr. Thompson.
While medical schools and
hospitals have every right to control what physicians or students post about
patients, they have less control over more ambiguous categories, such as use of
profanity, comedic content, and depictions of alcohol use or even disparaging
remarks about the schools.
The JAMA study noted
that "socially inappropriate medical student shows (in which medical
students write and perform satirical comedy skits) ... may serve important
coping and stress-release functions during difficult training; however, when
disseminated on media-sharing sites such as YouTube or Google Video, they carry
the potential for significant public impact and viral spread of content."
About three out of four
schools that noted unprofessional online conduct said they had only five or
fewer incidents reported, with trainees, non-faculty staff and faculty most
likely to complain. But researchers reached the same conclusion as Dr.
Thompson: Many medical schools "may not have adequate policy in
place" to address online conduct.
Susan Barnes, professor of
communication and associate director of the Lab for Social Computing at
Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology, said education on what is appropriate
online behavior needs to start much earlier than medical school.
Many of the medical students
today have been using social networking sites since they were teens, Barnes
said. "It's been talked about, but there really hasn't been a concerted
effort by churches, schools, and social organizations to really teach people
how to use these tools appropriately and inappropriately."
Consequences
of online content
According to the JAMA
study, in a few cases medical students with inappropriate online conduct
already have suffered consequences, including dismissal. But those were cases
where patient confidentiality was breached, or where there were multiple
incidences of behavior, including discriminatory language or depiction of
alcohol and drug use. In the vast majority of cases students were warned, or
nothing was done.
Sachin Jain, MD, a research
fellow and resident at the Dept. of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's
Hospital in Boston, learned firsthand that what is appropriate is often open
for interpretation.
Dr. Jain wrote an article in
the Aug. 13 New England Journal of Medicine about receiving a friendship
request from a patient on Facebook. Despite his uneasiness, he accepted the
request, only to learn later that the patient wanted to ask his advice about
medical school. Most would argue that friending patients on a social networking
site is never appropriate. But in this case, Dr. Jain said, the relationship
could be defined as professional and appropriate.
Dr. Jain, who often advises
premed students applying for medical school, said the first thing he tells them
is to clean up their Facebook pages. But students don't seem to understand why
that's important.
Rusty Weston, chief blogger at
the social networking Web site My Global Career, said one way physicians and
medical students can help protect themselves is to take advantage of the privacy
tools on social networking sites. For example, profile pages on Facebook can be
set to display pictures only to people in your network or even specific people
in your network, Weston said. "You can set those controls, and most people
don't."
One university included in the
JAMA study teaches students how to elect privacy settings on Facebook.
That resulted in an 80% decrease in publicly accessible accounts.
As more recruiters use the
sites to identify potential job candidates, any student or doctor using social
media probably would want to make their images as clean as possible, Dr. Jain
said. "Less is more."
ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION
Think twice
before posting
Wandering into the "gray
area" of appropriateness could tarnish your reputation. Experts advise
physicians and medical students to think hard about how much to share on social
media.
Alcohol use: Some patients may
find it comforting to see their physicians having a social life. But others may
consider it inappropriate, especially if there are too many examples. Examine
your photo collection to see how many of the pictures include alcohol.
Shop talk: Even if you're
careful about patient privacy, divulging too much about your workday could
invite unintended audiences to read and possibly draw the wrong conclusions.
Humor: What you find humorous,
others might find offensive. Consider your potential audience.
Criticizing current
employer/school: Even if you're not divulging your employer's name, criticizing
them might make potential employers think twice.
Friending patients: Unless you
maintain a patient-specific information site, it's generally not appropriate to
friend a patient on a site intended for social connections. Each request needs
careful consideration.
Postings from friends: Examine
each post on your personal "wall" and delete anything questionable.
Sources: Dan Rizzo, manager
and master recruiter for Schumacher Group; Sachin Jain, MD, research fellow and
resident at the Dept. of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in
Boston; Katherine Chretien, MD, internist at the VA Medical Center in
Washington and co-author of "Online Posting of Unprofessional Content by
Medical Students," Journal of the American Medical Association,
Sept. 23/30
Article 2
Romanian man gets 4 years in
Internet fraud case
June
29, 2011|Staff report
A Romanian man was sentenced to 48 months, or 4
years, in federal prison today for his role in an Internet fraud
conspiracy, federal officials said.
Adrian Ghighina, 33, was sentenced by U.S. District
Judge Matthew F. Kennelly in Chicago, according to a press release issued by
the Department of Justice. Ghighina pleaded guilty in February to one count
each of wire fraud and conspiracy, officials said.
Ghighina, who entered the United States legally in
late 2004, acted as a “money mule” in an Internet fraud conspiracy, officials
said. Ghighina’s co-conspirators, many of whom are in Romania, created
fraudulent online auctions for expensive items such as cars, motorcycles and
RVs on websites such as eBay, Craigslist and AutoTrader.com, according to the
release.
People who responded to the false listings were directed to send payment for the non-existent items using Western Union and bank wire transfers to accounts controlled by Ghighina, officials said.
Ghighina admitted that he moved from city to city where he opened accounts at various banks using false identification. The victims never received the items for which they had paid.
People who responded to the false listings were directed to send payment for the non-existent items using Western Union and bank wire transfers to accounts controlled by Ghighina, officials said.
Ghighina admitted that he moved from city to city where he opened accounts at various banks using false identification. The victims never received the items for which they had paid.
From September 2005 until his arrest in October
2009 in Miami, Ghighina opened accounts and/or received funds in Illinois, the
District of Columbia, Florida, New York and Arizona.
Ghighina was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Illinois and in also by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.
Ghighina was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Illinois and in also by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.
Ghighina also previously convicted on wire and visa
fraud charges in the Southern District of Florida and sentenced on those
charges to 27 months in prison. He is also serving a 21 month sentence in
the Florida case.
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