Professional Experience Placement

Professionalism and nursing education: An exploration of social media

This pilot study by Booth (2014) explored using a search engine aggregate data from various social feeds during two separate four day day periods in 2011.  Booth (2014) previously found that students were increasingly using social media for various elements of their nursing education. He found that although higher education institutions published policies regarding social media use, it was essentially a non-controlled activity.

The data was collected using key words and analysis was undertaken and the themes were validated by the research team. The main themes were annoyance and stress targeting the educational process; happiness and excitement regarding some element of nursing education; vulgar or derogatory statements targeting elements of nursing education; humour and humorous situations experienced in nursing education and declarative or questioning comments related to some elements of nursing education.

Within these main themes there were a number of sub themes, which are worth reading in the original article! The findings alert nurse educators and clinical supervisors to the importance of guiding students in the appropriate use of social technology. It was found there were postings triggered by events or activities related to students’ courses. However, some postings were in poor judgement and lacked professionalism standards espoused by nursing regulatory organisations. Inclusion of social media etiquette and an improvement in curricula and learning opportunities to reflect appropriate behaviour is necessary to ensure professionalism is maintained. The author concludes by stating it is vital that students and faculty become familiar and proficient with social technologies in order to gain deeper insights into both functional and safe ways to embed these communication tools within practice. It is important that clinical supervisors and preceptors can guide students in the appropriate use of social media and social technologies in the workplace.  In addition to issues of professionalism, there are also potential risks with associated with privacy, confidentiality and consent that need to be overt to students.

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