Taking Pictures of Patients without their Consent

1158 Words3 Pages

Getting a $20,000 reward while keeping my identity unknown, is the best that happened to me! I am so behind on my rent and my car had just gotten repossessed. My best friend is the one to thank. I can still keep my job, and nobody found out about the pictures that I had taken… I then realized I had been dreaming and I never got rewarded, because the Gossip Gazette called me yesterday and I declined respectfully that very moment they gave me that offer. I had made a terrible mistake. This is not my friend’s fault but my very own. I violated my patient’s trust and integrity. I went back on the promise I made to myself the day I graduated. My promise was to always advocate for my patient, no matter what circumstance and no matter who it was. I have failed at that because these pictures I had taken.

Over the past fifteen years, the use of social media by both the general public and by the business world has expanded dramatically. Social media is one of a number of social technologies - any technological device or technique that can be used to facilitate communication between individuals. Social technology includes everything from the telephone to Wikipedia. Social media, on the other hand, is the use of media platforms which were specifically create to connect users with other users and give them a peak into each other's lives by allowing them exchange information, messages, ideas, pictures, and other personal communication. However, it’s been known to abuse this rapidly growing technology.

The nursing field requires nurses to be honest and maintain patient integrity as one of the most important factors to be successful. Patients are at their most vulnerable state and many times they cannot defend themselves or even speak for thems...

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...s and there are many advantages to using social media from our Smartphones. We must be very careful especially in the medical field. Using social media can be helpful when trying to expand people’s knowledge of medical information but when it comes to using our Smartphones around our patients when it is not related to their treatment process we should remember HIPPA and whenever in doubt if what we’re sharing is ethically wrong we can review the HIPPA guidelines to make sure.

References

ECRI Institute. (2011, November). Social media in health care. Healthcare Risk Control.

Woolford, S., Blake, N., & Clark, S. (2013). Texting, Tweeting, and Talking: E-Communicating With Adolescents in Primary Care. Contemporary Pediatrics, NA, 12-18.

Randolph, S. A. (2012). Using Social Media and Networking in Health Care. Workplace Health & Safety, 60(1), 44-44.

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