Monitoring Blogs

specializes in treating mood disorders, walks into the waiting room to greet her new patient Jonas, she notices that he is furiously typing away on his laptop.His brow is furrowed in deep concentration.Jonas was recently hospitalized for mania and psychosis.He was initially brought to the hospital in police custody after claiming to have a bomb in his backpack and assaulting a police officer.At the hospital, he was started on antipsychotic and mood-stabilizing medications and referred to Dr. Patel for outpatient follow-up care.Even before they settle into Dr.Patel's office, Jonas is eager to tell Dr. Patel how much he has improved since his hospitalization."I am a thousand times better already!" exclaims Jonas."I've realized that I'm on a sacred journey of recovery, and so I started a blog to record all the ups and downs.The blog is going to be huge because I already have a ton of followers on Twitter."After Jonas leaves, Dr. Patel begins to wonder if she should take a look at Jonas's blog.On one hand, she thinks it would allow her get to know Jonas better.On the other hand, she wonders whether she would be crossing patient-doctor boundaries by seeking out the blog.Jonas has not asked her to read it.She thinks to herself, There is no telling what may turn up online. CommentaryInternet technologies in the twenty-first century have provided countless opportunities and potential pitfalls for professional practice in areas as diverse as medicine, law, politics, business, and academia.These technologies have especially serious implications for psychiatry, where emotional complexities, boundary issues, and privacy concerns are of particular concern in the relationship between clinician and patient.In the course of routine clinical practice, psychiatrists nowadays must grapple with questions about whether to exchange e-mails with patients, to participate in social networking sites such as Facebook, and to perform Internet searches in order to learn information about patients.Each of these uses of Internet technologies in psychiatry has received growing attention in the professional literature [1][2][3].The case scenario raises the question of whether clinical psychiatrists ought to read and monitor the websites or blogs of some of their patients.Blogging is a relatively new Internet phenomenon that has gained immense popularity and influence in recent years.On easily accessible blogging platforms

Dilemma · Epistemology · Internet privacy · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Media in Health Education