Social Media in Internship and Postdoctoral Training

1. Social Media in Internship and Postdoctoral Training Jeanette Hsu, Ph.D. VAPTC Meeting August 22, 2011

2. What is social media? • Social networking sites or “social media” • Facebook • Twitter • MySpace • LinkedIn • YouTube • Second Life • Google groups • Personal webpages • Email • Web logs or “blogs”

3. Issues in Trainees’ Use of Social Media • Professional self-presentation • Maintaining professional boundaries with patients/clients • Confidentiality of patient identifying information • Representation of VA, the health care system, and the training program

4. Guidelines • Use of these sites on VA time should be limited only to VA-related business or to access VA-related information and postings • Trainees should not represent themselves as VA interns or employees • Consider how peers, faculty/supervisors, patients, and potential employers would view any public information about them • Use the highest privacy settings to limit any personal information, pictures, communication to one’s online “friends” only

5. Guidelines • Keep clear professional boundaries by never “friending” a former or current patient, or otherwise accept or solicit personal connections with them • Do not discuss patient identifying information on any social networking site, email, blog, group, or other websites • If a website, blog, or social networking page identifies the trainee as a psychology trainee or affiliated with VA, the training program has some responsibility for how the trainee and the program is portrayed • Program may ask trainee to remove or modify unethical, illegal, inappropriate, or otherwise objectionable material

6. Example of Privacy Settings on Facebook • Public search availability • Can restrict the information the public can see if your name is searched on Facebook to only your profile picture and name • Can keep other information not viewable on a public search • Education, Work, Location, Interests • All other settings should be set to “private” • Friends can view all your other posts, pictures, and any other personal information you list • Friends can view your other friends’ postings on your “wall” • Choose your “friends” carefully!

7. Final Suggestions • Search for your name regularly on search engines such as Google and Yahoo (and recommend your trainees do so) • Request removal of personal information such as your home address and phone number from publicly available “people finders” such as spokeo.com, mylife.com, pipl.com, ussearch.com, and whitepages.com

8. Resources • VA has a new social media policy which addresses the “secure use of web-based collaboration and social media tools to enhance communication, stakeholder outreach collaboration, and information exchange….” http://www.va.gov/vapubs/viewPublication.asp?Pub_ID=551&FType=2 • APA has a Social Media/Forum Policy to provide guidance about use of APA social networking forums http://www.apa.org/about/social-media-policy.aspx

9. Questions and Discussion