Medscape: Social Media Use by Physicians Can Spur Medical Board Action

Joe Barber Jr, PhD, January 15, 2013

A new study has identified several online activities by physicians that are likely to result in investigation by state medical boards.

S. Ryan Greysen, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues published their findings in the January 15 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The authors mention that this study was prompted by the lack of data on what activities were likely to result in investigation. "Previous research by our group has shown that 60% of U.S. medical school deans had concerns about students posting unprofessional content [such as depicted intoxication and sexually explicit material] and that 71% of U.S. state medical boards have investigated physicians for violations of professionalism online in 1 or more of these categories," the authors write.

Read the rest at Medscape.com.