Doctors should not be Googling patients to uncover more information about their medical history and lifestyle, campaigners said today.
Experts have demanded a crackdown on the unspoken habit.
Dennis Reed, director of over-60s campaign group Silver Voices, said there are no circumstances where it’s justifiable to search for patients online.
Mr Reed said it is ‘unprofessional’ and could ‘colour’ a doctor’s views, adding: ‘If the permission is not given, it shouldn’t be happening.
‘If a doctor has told somebody to give up alcohol and the patient takes their own decision not to, but then the doctor looks them up on social media to see the individual with a glass in their hand, that does appear to be a complete infringement of civil liberty.’
Doctors are not allowed to access patient’s personal information unless they have a legitimate reason to view it, according to the General Medical Council (GMC)
Mr Reed wants ‘examples to be made’ to discourage other doctors from looking up patients online, to prevent the habit from getting out of hand.
But others say if a doctor can justify googling their patient for medical reasons then it should be allowed.
One doctor MailOnline spoke to, under the condition of anonymity, admitted to Googling a patient who had been excluded from a GP practice for violent and aggressive behaviour and another who they believed was committing ‘prescription fraud’.
Currently, there are no official General Medical Council (GMC) rules which prevent doctors from searching for patients on Google or social media.
Medics searching their patients online is ‘more common than either they or authorities like to admit’, according to an article published in the BMJ last year.
It pointed to several studies that found medics to be googling their patients.
One 2015 survey of Canadian emergency physicians and medical students found 64 out of 530 responses admitted to using Google to research a patient.
Another US survey from 2018 uncovered that out of 392 genetic counsellors and trainees, 130 confessed to searching a patients name online or had considered it.
It also revealed that 110 said they had looked at a patient’s social media site.
The journal raised several instances of this commonly broken taboo in anonymous confessions made by doctors.
One doctor working for a London NHS trust in the emergency department revealed they took this step after taking a HIV positive patient’s history.
The patient had told the medic that she was an office administrator, but the doctor suspected there was more to the patient’s history.
So, when the doctor got home they googled the patient’s name and discovered she was an adult film performer.
‘It raised questions: was she still working in that industry? Was the sex protected? Were they testing her regularly? I also knew she wasn’t taking her antiretroviral drugs’, the doctor told the BMJ.
The doctor wanted to discuss this with a senior colleague, in case of potential safeguarding problems, but didn’t out of fear of getting in trouble for how they had uncovered the information.
Another anonymous case raised in the BMJ detailed how a foundation year doctor in the NHS searched online for more details about a patient who had been admitted with a femoral neck fracture.
The doctor explained the patient had a history of factitious disorder, a mental condition where a person either pretends to be or acts in a purposeful way to become ill or injured.
After believing the patient ‘faked a seizure for attention’ during the doctor’s night shift, the medic decided to google the patient because they were ‘annoyed’.
The doctor found a Twitter account where the patient had posted pictures of herself in hospital and said she was there after a terminal cancer diagnosis.
However, the doctor didn’t tell anyone about the information discovered on Twitter because they ‘didn’t want the consequences’.
Some say if a doctor can justify googling their patient for medical reasons then it should be allowed
‘I’m not sorry I googled her, it brought closure to a difficult night,’ the doctor told the BMJ. ‘It is publicly available information. I didn’t break any rules.’
But campaigners say googling a patient is a potential breach of trust between patient and doctor, if there is no justifiable reason to search for them online.
‘If you are happy to write it in the medical record, and you’ll be happy justifying it to your colleague and to the patient themselves, it’s not a problem’, says Sam Smith from campaign group Medconfidential.
However, he does suggest the line is drawn if there is no medical need to search for the patient online.
One hypothetical example he gives that would not be justifiable is if a young male doctor looks up a young woman on Instagram after they were in A&E.
He also explains that an A&E doctor should not need to gather more lifestyle information about a patient as they will not likely see them again.
But on the other hand a GP, who sees a patient far more regularly for example, could be justified seeking such information, he added.
‘If you’re an A&E doctor and you’ve gone off shift, and you’ve gone looking for them online, you’re never going to see them again. But it is different if you have a continuing relationship with a patient.’
A GMC spokesperson said: ‘Trust is integral to maintaining relationships between doctors and their patients, and between the wider public and the medical profession.
‘Our core guidance, Good Medical Practice, is clear that patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and health.
‘Doctors must make sure their conduct justifies their patients’ trust in them and the public’s trust in the profession.
‘And they must not use their professional position to pursue a sexual or improper emotional relationship with a patient or someone close to them.
‘Finally, doctors must be prepared to justify the actions that they take.
‘We consider concerns if they raise a question about a doctor’s fitness to practise.’
