Doctors in the UK have been warned that responding to patients who make advances to them on Facebook could seriously harm their career.
The London-based Medical Defence Union (MDU) said it was aware of cases where amorous patients have tried to proposition doctors through Facebook. It advises them that even turning down advances politely through the social networking site could mean stepping over the strict boundary defining acceptable doctor-patient relationships and potentially bring about a complaint to the General Medical Council, which regulates standards in the medical profession in the UK.
The warning comes in an article in the MDU Journal that cites the case of a 30-year-old man who sent his GP lilies because he knew from her Facebook site that they were her favorite flowers. He made a number of approaches to her, some of them on Facebook, in an attempt to persuade her to go out with him.
“The pitfalls posed to doctors using social networking sites by inadvertently breaching confidentiality or posting unprofessional content, such as photos, have been well documented. But doctors may be less prepared for patients using sites like Facebook to ask them out on a date,” said Emma Cutzner, the MDU’s medico-legal adviser.
“Some doctors have told the MDU they feel it would be rude not to reply, if only to politely refuse, but given that this is not a professional route of communication, any correspondence of this sort would clearly stray outside the doctor-patient relationship.”
In the anonymized case, the 30-year-old man who took a fancy to his GP had originally come to the surgery after a minor car accident. The doctor diagnosed minor whiplash and gave him painkillers and advice. The lilies arrived the following day, and after work the patient waited for the GP in the car park. He tried to give her a travel book and asked her to join him for a drink.
She told him she could not accept his gifts, but he continued to send her messages via Facebook. She contacted the MDU, who advised her not to respond to him on Facebook but to write him a formal letter explaining she could not have anything to do with him and ensure that only her colleagues treated him in the future.
Doctors could be accused of bringing their profession into disrepute if they post incautious photographs on a site where members of the public and their own patients could access them. They must also be very careful to guard patient confidentiality. There is a danger that lighthearted remarks about the people they have seen during the working day could lead to patients being identified.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS