Dealing with Patients on Facebook: Key Issue!
In my course in which I also describe what doctors should do when patients add them as friends on Facebook, we cover topics that are related to the everyday lives of physicians from the digital perspective. A few days ago, Joel Topf, nephrologist, told me on Twitter that he used my method when a patient added him on Facebook:
If the profile is personal, I reject the request and send a private message to the patients explaining why I did that: this is a personal account, while our relationship is professional. They always understand and accept my decision.
Then I asked Joel whether it worked out well.
My method is based on purely natural communication and transparent reasoning. This is why it works.
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I have a personal Facebook profile (where I share with my friends and family) and an additional Facebook ‘Fan Page’ business Page where I interact with my patients. Most of my patients are not on Twitter although I use it a lot for my own education.
I find Facebook (where about 45% of my patients have an account) very useful for getting information out to patients eg general info related to new treatments, stuff going on in the community.
I would tend to do the same regarding friend requests on my personal Facebook page…