Doctors, Social Media, Conflict of Interest: which doesn't belong? #doctors20

Berman Bioethics Institute, at  Johns Hopkins has just published a new article with a striking title, Physicians, social media, and conflicts of interest. If we need to eliminate the piece that doesn't fit, it would have to be conflict of interest.

The author suggests that social media cannot function without the elimination of conflict of interest, because, in his opinion, Americans are already wary of online doctors. The wariness stems from the news of fraudulent studies published by doctors in the US, and growing information regarding conflicts of interest. The use of pseudonyms, while fortunately not universal, is a hindrance to the establishment of trust with doctors online. Additionally, the author reminds us that the brevity of web articles and microblogging make it practically impossible to ensure that specific conflict of interest information reaches readers.

Although the good news is that various professional organizations in the US, have published guidelines for social media, Johns Hopkins notes that these guidelines are ineffective. They may be voluntary or not even mention conflict of interest.

We can only concur. Consumers must know the real identity of physicians they contact online and whether they have conflicts of interest...ie the Dollars for Docs initiative. The question remains of course, to define "conflicts of interest."...Isn't "fee for service" a conflict of interest in itself.