Social media profiles: Striking the right balance

Abstract

In today’s society, social networking is ubiquitous. Pharmacists can “tweet” about the highlight of their day, “check in” from an afterwork social event, “friend” a high-school sweetheart, and read everyone’s status updates. All this can be accomplished from the convenience of your phone or home computer. Social networking can also assist in a job search if you decide to post your resume on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn (LinkedIn Corporation, Mountain View, CA). However, the advent of social networking has also created professionalism dilemmas. What used to be private comments on e-mail can now be seen by hundreds of people, including a potential employer, a student under your preceptorship, or a patient who is scheduled for clinic the next day. As new practitioners, we are the first group of pharmacists to deal with questions of “e-professionalism” as we transition from students to practitioners. How do we use social networking sites to stay in touch with family, friends, classmates, and colleagues while still maintaining the level of professionalism required by the Oath of a Pharmacist?1 There are three basic strategies that a new practitioner can take in constructing social networking profiles: (1) maintain them as strictly personal and restrict access to close friends, (2) have a profile that is only professional, with content limited to work-related business, and (3) adopt a hybrid model by creating a personal profile entirely separate from a professional profile (this is known as dual citizenship2) or create one profile that contains a blend of both personal and professional details.