An Atlanta mom gave start to a child boy in late 2023 who was unintentionally decapitated throughout supply. Inside hours of this unimaginable tragedy, the physician who carried out the post-mortem had posted photographs of the infant to his social media accounts. To most of us, medical professionals or not, it appears logical that that is despicable conduct. We should ask ourselves: what would drive a longtime, revered physician to publish such traumatic and delicate medical photographs on social media, with out regard for the affected person or their household? Is it doable that he noticed this case as a novel alternative for exponential views and subsequently disregarded his skilled requirements?

Social media has all the time influenced healthcare training {and professional} conduct. Nonetheless, the start of TikTok has created a shockwave deeper than another platform, and never essentially a great one. I used to be in my Bachelor of Science of Nursing program in mid-2010, earlier than TikTok existed. In fact, we had a number of different types of social media, similar to Fb and Instagram. As nursing college students, we have been informed repeatedly, merely, “Don't do it.” Though social media conduct was not an in depth focus of the nursing curriculum, each professor and medical teacher emphasised the identical sentiment. We have been conditioned to enter healthcare with the understanding that actually nothing about your apply finally ends up on social media, and we dutifully adopted that.

Because the implementation of TikTok, a brand new set of social norms has emerged that solely exists inside the app. Now not is the concept of ​​sharing photographs from the tropical trip for grandma in one other state to see. Now the consumer's aim is to place out probably the most stunning and putting photographs to the market, to get as many views as doable. The distinction is that TikTok reveals all customers the variety of video views, one thing earlier social media platforms didn’t do. Such a format performs to the innate human aggressive nature and promotes a tradition of publishing content material that will get as a lot consideration as doable, typically at any price. This has created a brand new subculture the place folks publish something and every part on TikTok, irrespective of how embarrassing or embarrassing it might be in the true world. Doing or admitting issues that you simply wouldn't say out loud in public, however solely within the privateness of your personal residence, whereas filming it for TikTok, after all. The return is a dose of dopamine achieved via 1000’s and even thousands and thousands of views, giving the consumer the phantasm of fame and notoriety. However that's the factor: it's an phantasm. In actual life they’re nonetheless unusual individuals who can stroll down the road unnoticed. However within the app they’re a model of a digital actuality movie star.

As we all know, dopamine is addictive, and so is the method of posting movies and getting excessive scores. This turns into a significant downside when it penetrates the minds of healthcare professionals. Many people use TikTok, whether or not for the aim of public training, data sharing, or just “energy.” In actual fact, 'NurseTok' is a particular area of interest of movies on the app, which provides nurses an incentive to create tailored content material because it is a chance to achieve an already viewers. The issue arises within the mixture of the content material of healthcare and the set of antithetical digital social norms. As healthcare professionals, we see issues day by day that maintain most individuals again, and we develop into blind to them. Posting this type of factor on-line, whereas more likely to entice the opinions you need, carries a excessive threat of HIPAA violations, affected person security dangers, and even humiliation of sufferers as a way to captivate viewers. One thing that will be shielded from the general public eye in the true world, like a decapitated new child child, could be proudly displayed on TikTok and get 1000’s and 1000’s of views. As healthcare professionals utilizing the app, we stroll a high-quality line between creating attention-grabbing content material and upholding our skilled values.

Why did we even enter this subject? Is it as a result of we need to assist folks, or is it as a result of we knew we might get countless views on “NurseTok”?

As we prepare a brand new era of healthcare workforce, we should spotlight the dangers of posting apply data on social media and refocus consideration on affected person privateness and dignity. Extra public consciousness is required of the social impacts of TikTok usually, however particularly because it pertains to healthcare professionals. On the coronary heart of this challenge are sufferers and our duty to be their advocates. Younger healthcare college students studying this: keep in mind the clear delineation between who you’re on TikTok and who you need to be within the subject. And for healthcare educators, think about implementing content material associated to this well timed subject into your curriculum. Possibly then we'll hear fewer tales about nurses and docs getting fired after their boss finds their TikTok account, and most significantly, fewer tales about sufferers being exploited for TikTok views.

About Alexandra V. Aglieco, APRN, FNP-BC

Alexandra V. Aglieco, APRN, FNP-BC. is a board-certified household nurse practitioner with six years of nursing expertise and is at present a Physician of Nursing Observe pupil on the College of North Carolina Chapel Hill.