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If a patient/former patient of yours (I’m not talking about a patient who happens to also be your friend from way way back or someone who is a family friend-----I’m talking about a patient you met initially on your floor as a nurse) add you in his/her facebook account, would you accept it? Why or why not? Just curious..........
If a patient/former patient of yours (I'm not talking about a patient who happens to also be your friend from way way back or someone who is a family friend-----I'm talking about a patient you met initially on your floor as a nurse) add you in his/her facebook account, would you accept it? Why or why not? Just curious..........
No. I believe in keeping my work life and my private life separate. It helps keep me sane. I don't even have fellow workers as friends on Facebook. I've always made a practice of leaving work at work, and not even giving it a thought unless I'm actually at work - no matter what I do for a living. I do mention in a general and vague way that I work at a hospital and general description of what I do, but that's it - no details, on Facebook or even in face to face discussions with people away from work. I think any sort of social contacts with patients outside of work is inappropriate, but that's me. Boundaries.......
If a patient/former patient of yours (I'm not talking about a patient who happens to also be your friend from way way back or someone who is a family friend-----I'm talking about a patient you met initially on your floor as a nurse) add you in his/her facebook account, would you accept it? Why or why not? Just curious..........
I would not because it crosses professional boundaries. My patients are not my friends and I don't want them knowing my personal business and who I talk to. I might want to complain about work on FB and I dont want them to hear that either. If you get too familiar they might think of overstepping their boundaries and ask you to come check out their grandma or something. Its all about the boundaries.
Never,.In fact I'm not thrilled about how many people from work have added me and I'm trying to figure out how to delete people without causing a hubbaloo
Yet another good reason to be glad for working in geriatrics though. I never have and probably never will have a patient try to add me, most of them don't even know what hospital they're at anyway, much less be able to retain my name!
Yet another good reason to be glad for working in geriatrics though. I never have and probably never will have a patient try to add me, most of them don't even know what hospital they're at anyway, much less be able to retain my name!
Yeah, and they would probably think that Facebook is what you get when you fall asleep with your cheek on your novel.
BTW, I'm with the majority about keeping good boundaries. We have so completely muddied the definition of friend that now you have to include someone you stood in a long line with at the grocery store. I told a health insurance person that I talked to a number of times (to straighten out a problem) that I'd have to add her to my Christmas card list, and I was only half joking.
We have lost the distinction between amiable acquaintance and real friend.
Patients are a whole 'nother ballgame altogether. I remember learning that a therapeutic relationship is--by definition--one-sided. The parties involved are not peers. There is none of the regular give-and-take that characterizes a genuine friendship.
That is not to say that there can't be real affection, especially in the case of long-term care or repeat patients with chronic conditions. Of course, there can. But it's like the parent/child dynamic concerning friendship. I can be a friend to my kids as well as a parent, but if I have to choose, I'm the parent every time. The same goes for nurse and patient.
I still wouldn't do the Facebook thing, though. If the friendship is there, it can take other routes for the sake of boundaries and to avoid and HIPAA concerns.
Well. It is really good to have strong relationship with all patirnts. But stay in terapeutic relationship might not suggest us to add or confirm any friendship request from any on facebook. Just one example, we might have our priority changed when that patient re-admitted as already getting much closer through that, and we actually have others patients to be taken cared of.
So, stay within professional relationship and boundaries is quite fair.
jaymie1983
5 Posts
Nope! I really don't want to give patients the impression that I maybe interested in them in any way other than wanting to be their nurse. It could leader to someone stocking you and heaven knows what else. In the healthcare profession, the individuals are sick, and sometimes this also includes mentally!