|
 “The internet and ready access to vast amounts of information are
now permanent aspects of how we live our lives, including how we
think about and deal with our health problems,” Dr. Chris Feudtner,
director of medical ethics at the Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia, said by email.
Social media in particular can affect how patients interact with
doctors and what type of care they expect, Feudtner and colleagues
write in an article about ethics in the journal Pediatrics.
“Clinicians should ask about what patients and families have read on
the Internet, and then work through that information thoughtfully,
as sometimes Internet information is not helpful and sometimes it is
helpful,” Feudtner said. “Doing this takes time and effort, yet
trust is built with time and effort.”
To explore the ethical challenges posed by patients’ virtual lives,
Feudtner and examined a fictional case blending elements of several
recent real-life situations.
In this hypothetical case, the parents of a 10-year-old boy
hospitalized with cancer started a blog. Doctors, nurses and other
hospital staff were among the 1,000 subscribers to his blog.
A year after his hospital stay ended, the boy relapsed, and his
parents launched an online petition seeking access to an
experimental cancer treatment that was only available through
clinical trials. No trials were accepting new patients.
The petition draws 60,000 supporters in just 48 hours, and news
crews descend on the hospital.
Aside from the obvious pressure this puts on one team of clinicians
at one hospital to help one very sick child, this situation raises
broader ethical issues about how treatment decisions should be made.
Fairness issues arise because not all families have the same access
to social media or skill at using online communities to advocate for
the care they want to receive, doctors argue in the article.
[to top of second column] |
Hospitals and other healthcare institutions need to have policies in
place to handle situations when patients’ social media posts go
viral and take steps to respond proactively. Clinicians need to know
they will be supported for providing appropriate care even when this
clashes with what patients and families advocate for on social
medial.
The case also serves as a reminder that doctors need to work with
patients to keep the lines of communication open, said Dr. Robert
Macauley, medical director of clinical ethics at the University of
Vermont Medical Center.
“More and more often, patients are not only exploring potential
treatment options on the Internet, but using web-based resources for
determining diagnosis and prognosis,” Macauley, who wasn’t involved
in the ethics article, said by email.
Especially when doctors know there’s a lot of inaccurate information
online, they should be pro-active about asking patients and families
what they’ve learned from the web, Macauley said.
“Open-ended questions designed to identify alternate (and
potentially misleading) information that the patient has
received—whether through the internet, social media, old-fashioned
reading, or conversation with others—will help dispel misperceptions
and ensure that both physician and patient are starting with the
same set of facts,” Macauley added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2b1unlx Pediatrics, online August 5, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
