Social Media and Professional Boundaries

Social media has transformed how people communicate, but for medical students and doctors it creates a minefield of professional risks. A single ill-judged post can breach confidentiality, damage the profession's reputation, and trigger a Fitness to Practise investigation. This lesson covers what the GMC expects, what medical students can and cannot share, and how the SJT tests social media judgement.

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Why Social Media Matters for Medical Professionals

The Scale of the Risk

Social media posts are:

• Permanent — Even deleted posts may have been screenshotted, cached, or archived
• Public — Privacy settings are not foolproof; anything you post should be considered public
• Searchable — Employers, medical schools, and patients can find your profiles
• Context-free — Humour, sarcasm, and nuance are easily lost in text

The GMC's Position

The GMC's guidance Doctors' Use of Social Media (2013, still current) states:

The standards expected of doctors do not change because they are communicating through social media rather than face to face or in another way.

This means: