A review of the main guidelines on how medical students and doctors should use social media to maintain professionalism

An increasing number of medical educators are inviting students to engage with them on social media for learning and professional development purposes. Students are then likely to experience the phenomenon of “Context Collapse” where distinct audiences: family and friends; peer medical students; senior academics and doctors are brought together on a common platform1. Pilot work2 has suggested that medical students at Brighton Sussex Medical School receive strong warnings from curriculum leaders about maintaining professionalism on social media which is understandable since students can potentially be suspended from their course due to unprofessional behavior on social media3. However this appears to result in a “self-censorship” behavior1, where students limit contributions on social media to protect being judged by their most sensitive audience. This is frustrating for social media-enthusiastic educators who believe that introducing and encouraging participation on academic social media platforms may provide crucial early professional development for medical students4. However firstly there has been a call from medical educators for more clarity on what governing bodies consider social media professionalism to be5,6.