Professional Ethics and Social Media-Medicine and Religion

by Margot Locker

Last week we posted the first in our two part series on Project Zero’s Carrie James’ experience at SMU’s “Conference of the Professions.”  After John Browning spoke about ethics and the law, Dr. Dan McCoy, a dermatologist, spoke about ethical dilemmas and challenges surfacing in medicine related to the internet.

He began by explaining how the internet allows patients to research their ailments and creates communities around shared experiences with medical conditions.  While these forums can be positive places for patients to relate, provide advice, and share stories, they can also be a source of misinformation for many. Dr. McCoy further detailed that there is concern across the field because it is difficult to police these spaces.

He also cited the tensions in online doctor-patient relationships, as they lack the trust and authenticity which are often products of face to face interactions. A solid relationship between doctor and patient is key to good medicine. While “telemedicine” should not necessarily cease to exist, the interactions online should be handled with care.

At the closing of his talk, Dr. McCoy cited a case in his life where a young nurse posted a photo of medical nature online that was deemed inappropriate and was consequently fired.  She was later reinstated as the picture was not identified or tagged. Cases like these raise the questions of doctor patient confidentiality and the caution medical professionals need to take in their online and social media activity.

After hearing Dr. McCoy speak, several conference participants offered their experiences with ethical uses of the internet in medicine. One participant wondered if it is ethical to find information out about a patient online in order to better treat them (such as a picture of a patient smoking). Another participant in the conference noted that psychiatric residents are more commonly “googling” patients in order to gather more information about their histories, which in turn changes the nature of their clinical encounter and how they may treat the patient. Should this practice be banned? Is it helpful or harmful in deciding on a course of treatment?

After Dr. McCoy finished speaking, the last member of the panel, Pastor Dusty Craig, shared his thoughts on the place of the internet in religion. He feels that social media allows people to get to know their spiritual leader in a different environment.  These media also provide forums for members of religious communities to share their perspectives on their faith and, in so doing, helps push against the notion that the leader is the only person who can speak about the meaning of the faith He pointed out that the mission of the church is to spread the word and get the message to the “un-churched, de-churched, and anti-church population,” and social media is an ideal means to do this.  Pastor Craig ended by acknowledging that with all the benefits of the internet, policies are still necessary to regulate use within the church. His church, for instance, has rules on what staff can post online, especially as they “friend” and reach out virtually to many people in order to get them interested in the church.

Offering these diverse perspectives about the internet in their places of work, this panel revealed many common challenges facing the professions when it comes to internet usage and social media. Many questions come to mind in thinking about these issues: What privacy issues do we face in light of the internet? How is the relationship between doctor/patient, lawyer/client, and pastor/ practioner altered due to online activity? How can social media be ethically managed? How are professions adapting professional codes, or creating new ones, to address new issues raised in new media environments?

Professional Ethics and Social Media-The Law

by Margot Locker

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other forms of social media are rapidly becoming a vital form of communication worldwide. This trend impacts not only how people share information informally, but also has implications for the professions. In the world of law, social media and online activity are bringing up new issues of ethics and integrity. This topic was discussed at SMU’s “Professional Ethics and Social Media: Like?” conference, held last week in Dallas. Project Zero Research Director Carrie James was invited to give the keynote address at the conference, discussing topics including the moral and ethical dimensions of digital life and what can we do in education and training of young professionals to prepare them to handle social media ethically.

Following her address, there was a panel discussion including a physician, a lawyer, and a pastor. Each member of the panel had experienced or observed ethical dilemmas and challenges in their work related to online life, and shared their insights on their choices and thoughts when confronting these issues. In this blog series, we will share some insights from these professionals..

John Browning, a lawyer and author of The Lawyers Guide to Social Networking, opened the panel with his view that the law is currently unable to keep pace with innovations in technology.  He also suggested that new media create both opportunities and challenges. For example, the internet allows clients to research their rights and legal methods, but also serves to complicate the position of jurors.  Many cases nationwide have emerged in which jurors have violated the integrity of the law with online conduct: jurors looking up information online pertaining to the case, and sometimes referencing the wrong state for laws, thus leading to mistrials; jurors using Facebook to ask friends to respond to a poll as to how they should vote on the case. As a result, Browning explained, new guidelines have been put in place for jurors about their online conduct.

Browning also raised issues of misuse of social media tools and the legal questions that have followed.  As usage of Twitter, Facebook, and blogs have become more prevalent means of communicating legal questions have been raised about whether one can expect privacy for one’s online content. For instance, the question of whether status updates on social media accounts could be used as admissible evidence in cases where employees are claiming sickness, depression, or other ailments while their updates suggest otherwise has been raised in recent court cases.

Case by case, our legal notions of privacy and free speech are being confronted by the new realities presented as people share more of their lives online. Browning believes that there is a need for social media policies in companies, firms, and organizations to guide employees’ online conduct. On the other hand, many are wary of enforcing policies governing online activity as they could easily become a form of censorship and viewed as prohibition of free speech for employees.

The key questions that emerge:  Do we need a new set of rules to guide our behavior online? Do we need to have a new set of rules for how online evidence is treated? Should the law treat content posted by minors differently – just as criminal transgressions by youth are?

What are your reactions and thoughts on the issues?

Stay tuned for a video from the conference in the next few weeks!

The Rise and Fall of the University Emperor

by Howard Gardner

This piece is an excerpt from an On Leadership roundtable on higher education and the 21st-century leadership challenge for university presidents.

As the story goes, when James Conant of Harvard went to visit Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the White House, the wags in Cambridge said “the president is in Washington, visiting Mr. Roosevelt.”

Yet long gone are the days when university presidents—the likes of Abbott Lawrence Lowell of Harvard or Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia—reigned supreme. Perhaps it is not as dire as you’d think listening to the current wags’ quip: “The president of the college is someone who lives in a big house and begs.” But college and university presidents are indeed running huge multi-million-dollar or multi-billion-dollar operations and are responsible to numerous constituencies, whose interests are often diametrically opposed to one another.

On top of that, we live in a decidedly non-heroic time (witness the current political mess in Washington and most state capitals). Against this background, the call for university presidents, individually or corporately, to get their act together to solve the financial problems, make students accountable and speak out bravely on the issues of the day seems unrealistic.

And yet it is equally apparent that the current situation, with roughly 4,000 institutions of higher learning in the United States, is untenable. The apparent lure and efficacy of online education will inevitably lead to a thinning of the ranks. And this survival of the fittest will play out based in part on financial resources (Princeton is unlikely to go out of business), in part on distinctive programs (there may always be a place for quirky offerings, à la St. John’s great books curriculum), and in part on outstanding athletic or artistic programs.

Having sketched a depressing picture, let me offer a few positive suggestions.

Yes, university presidents who remain at the helm for several years, and who manage to build up a reservoir of good will, can make and consolidate sensible changes in curricula, pricing, scheduling and faculty recruitment. And universities that strive to align the interests of the various constituencies can forge ahead in a promising direction.

This piece was originally published in full in The Washington Post.

GoodWork in the Elementary Classroom: Round 2

by Margot Locker

After finishing up their work on Engagement-Amy took her students through lessons on Ethics and Excellence, using narratives, books, and interactive activities to introduce her 6 and 7 year olds to these concepts. During the 40-minute lessons, the students were energetic and participatory.  Amy’s vivid examples helped her class connect with the material.

To begin her Ethics lesson, Amy read her students a narrative, “Messy Maria.” In this short vignette, Maria’s best friend Belinda teases her about her messy habits, earning her a class nickname of “Messy Maria.” In the end, the students reflected about the importance of treating people kindly and fairly, and taking responsibility for your actions. Amy led the discussion about the story with her class by asking students, “If you are being a good friend are you also being a good, ethical class citizen?” This gave the class the opportunity to work on a definition of ethics and think about its implications in the classroom. Infusing the qualities of a good class citizen into the discussion of ethics helped Amy’s students understand the concept and further develop their definition.

Learning about excellence began with the story Country Bunny. As students listened to Amy read, they interjected and responded enthusiastically to her questions relating to the idea of excellence and who defines it. At the end of the story, Amy and her students spoke about excellence and then constructed a list of words describing “excellence.” Initially based on attributes of the animals in the story, they then moved on to their own ideas. Responses included “working as a team,” “never giving up,” “helping each other out,” and “trying your best all the time.” Amy connected the ideas to their lesson on Engagement, asking students to think back to their Expertise Charts and question what makes someone an “Expert?”  The lesson finished with Amy posing a question to her students: “If you are having a hard time, how do you do excellent work?”  Thinking about their expertise charts, students commented that asking for help, and looking to classmates who were “experts” may help to provide solutions.

After learning about the 3 E’s, students felt compelled to define them in their own terms, take ownership over the material and make it more relevant to their own school community. Students defined excellence as “being the best we can be,” Ethics as “being respectful and a good friend,” and Engagement as “liking what we are learning about.”

Amy will continue to include GoodWork lessons into her classroom, building on the foundation she and her students have built together. Stay tuned for more news from Amy Maturin’s classroom!

GoodWork in the Elementary Classroom

by Margot Locker

“Why is it important to like what you are learning about?”

This is one of the first questions Amy Maturin, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher at Unity Charter School in New Jersey, asked her students as they started a unit on “Citizenship in our Community.”  Incorporating several GoodWork concepts into her instruction, Amy’s first lesson tackled the subject of engagement.  She began with reading a story about 6 year-old Kyle who thought he was “horrible at school” before finding a passion and applying it to all of his learning.

Amy Maturin and her mother, Jo Hoffman, are both educators in New Jersey. We first started speaking with them this past summer (Jo contributed a blog – see link below): their enthusiasm for the GoodWork material was evident, and their commitment to work with us to create a version of the Toolkit to be used with younger students was exciting. We all share the belief that the GoodWork concepts can and should be introduced at a young age and yet those of us on the GW team have yet to have the find to devote to this new project.  Together, we’re working to make this idea a reality.

Amy created a unit on Citizenship, embedding three, 3-day GoodWork specific lessons (one on each of the 3 E’s-Engagement, Excellence, and Ethics) within the unit plan. She is just finishing out the lessons on engagement-a concept difficult for students of all ages to understand, let alone 6 and 7 year olds. After reading Kyle’s story to her class, Amy led her students through a brainstorm about why it is important to like what you are learning about. Students’ answers ranged from “because it is fun,” to “so you understand better.” The next activity introduced the idea of an “expertise” to students, helping them to understand that often their skills with a particular activity has to do with how much they enjoy it. Each child made a chart (see picture) of his or her expertise, helping students grasp the connection between enjoyment, being good at something and feeling excited to participate. It was here that Amy was really able to focus on the idea of engagement as an important tool both in and outside of the classroom.

Amy will next begin a series of lessons on excellence-including asking students to consider excellence as it relates to engagement and using their expertise charts to think about working hard and the qualities of GoodWork.

We are looking forward to the next lessons in Amy’s classroom, and the next lessons for us in this new venture. If any readers are interested in participating and helping to test out and develop elementary school GoodWork materials-please let us know!