Exploring digital professionalism

Abstract

The widespread use of digital media (both computing devices and the services they access) has blurred the boundaries between our personal and professional lives. Contemporary students are the last to remember a time before the widespread use of the Internet and they will be the first to practice in a largely e-health environment. This article explores concepts of digital professionalism and their place in contemporary medical education, and proposes a series of principles of digital professionalism to guide teaching, learning and practice in the healthcare professions. Despite the many risks and fears surrounding their use, digital media are not an intrinsic threat to medical professionalism. Professionals should maintain the capacity for deliberate, ethical, and accountable practice when using digital media. The authors describe a digital professionalism framework structured around concepts of proficiency, reputation, and responsibility. Digital professionalism can be integrated into medical education using strategies based on awareness, alignment, assessment, and accountability. These principles of digital professionalism provide a way for medical students and medical practitioners to embrace the positive aspects of digital media use while being mindful and deliberate in its use to avoid or minimize any negative consequences.

Ética e Profissionalismo nas Redes Sociais: Comportamentos On-Line de Estudantes de Medicina

“…Como alternativa para uma formação mais abrangente, que possa ampliar a visão da ética, pode ser interessante incluir, na graduação médica, docentes formados em Ciências Sociais e Ciências Humanas, como sugerido por Gomes e colaboradores 33 no artigo "O lugar da Ética e Bioética nos currículos de formação médica". Alguns estudos evidenciaram que intervenções educacionais em profissionalismo on-line podem gerar maior senso de responsabilidade e comprometimento de estudantes e médi-cos nas redes sociais [34][35][36][37] . Além disso, esses estudos sugerem a inclusão da abordagem do profissionalismo no meio digital e on-line na educação médica [34][35][36][37] .…”

Identifying Opportunities to Integrate Digital Professionalism into Curriculum: A Comparison of Social Media Use by Health Profession Students at an Australian University in 2013 and 2016

“…Although 26% of respondents indicated that no current social media sites were suitable for study purposes, the validity of utilising digital media to enhance professional education cannot be discounted. As stated in previous studies, negative consequences of the use of digital media can be avoided by effective planning of the integration of digital media for educational purposes [12].…”

“…Development of digital professionalism during their undergraduate program, and at graduation is necessary to ensure health profession students understand the need for safe and appropriate use of digital technologies while in the workplace [12]. The inception of a University social media policy [3] at this University has enabled modelling of appropriate behaviour to be included in curricula and implemented in on-campus classes [23,24] prior to students going into the workplace as a consequence of these policy developments.…”

“…Ellaway and colleagues [12] argue that "training and assessing the digitally enhanced learner in preparation for their future digitally-enhanced practice" is necessary. A review of curriculum design informed by the results of this study and previous studies can guide planning and integration of digital professionalism into undergraduate health profession curricula.…”

Medium, Message, Panopticon: The Electronic Health Record in Residency Education

“…5 As much as we might question the relevance of using an EHR for residency training, there is another, perhaps larger, issue: the use of syntactic log data to monitor how health professionals use EHRs and other e-health technologies. Tracking and monitoring are key aspects of Internet technologies, 6 and Chen et al have illustrated this power by using the logs of individual residents' clicks and keystrokes to make inferences about their behaviors and the value of those behaviors. 4 It should be noted that Chen et al are not the only researchers to use log data to make inferences about clinical behaviors; 7 there seems to be a growing acceptance of this approach.…”