Essay on Social Media in Nursing: Friend Or Foe?

The article is about the impacts of social media in the nursing profession. Social media impacts both positively and negatively to the nursing profession. Among the positive impacts are that it promotes emotional and mental health among nurses and encourages the nurses to the journal to release tension meditatively. However, social media has had its flaws. For instance, it has resulted in nurses breaching patient privacy, violating the law, humiliating patients as well as degrading the security and safety of the medical field. The author of the article, Leah Rachel tries to explain that though social media is associated with several benefits, the consequences overshadow the benefits by a greater margin.

Discussion

Bode argues that when social media is used properly, it can be very beneficial to the medical community. For instance, since nursing profession is one area with an enormous amount of stress, social media provides the channel through which nurses can set themselves free of the stress. She cites the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United States' source which includes nursing among the top 40 occupations with the highest prevalence of stress-related disorders. She asserts that nurses in most cases fall victims of burnout which according to Smith encompasses fatigue and prolonged stress. The said stress in hospitals lowers healthcare quality and raises costs, further reducing the efficiency and competence of nursing as a profession. Social media when utilized appropriately help lower the symptoms of fatigue.

Social media according to Leah Rachel Bode can encourage nurses to the journal to relieve stress and release tension meditatively. She explains that nurses in most cases ignore their own needs to serve others which may impact negatively on their health. When these nurses join blogs or other websites, they find a place where they can squeeze out their emotions, work through situations that may be distressful, or manage their stress therapeutically. Through social media, nurses are also able to address their own needs and situations thereby preventing compassion fatigue. Since journaling plays an important role in aiding the left side of the brain balance out the right side of the emotions of the right side, it can enhance nurses emotional health hence impacting the efficiency and safety of the medical field.

However, even though there are several benefits provided by social media, it is bereaved with faults and these faults, when closely examined, overshadow the benefits. This is in light of the serious consequences that has often resulted from the misuse of the social websites. Nurses, through social media, has openly violated their code of conduct and work ethic. They have infringed the privacy of their patients, broken the law, placed their patients through humiliations and tainted the safety and security of the medical field. The nature of the social media itself is against the essence of the United States healthcare. Social media is a platform that encourages dialogue, being open and peoples connection to ideas. This goes against the confidentiality guiding nursing as a career. Materials that disclose a patients identity are considered confidential. When this is misunderstood by nurses, problems tend to result.

Conclusion

Summarily, social media when properly used in nursing offers several benefits. Some of these benefits include promoting emotional and mental health among nurses and encouraging nurses to the journal to release tension meditatively. However, inappropriate of social media has resulted in flaws which have overshadowed its benefits. For instance, it has resulted in nurses breaching patient privacy, violating the law, humiliating patients as well as degrading the security and safety of the medical field, making social media a foe in healthcare.