The faculty of Health has created a set of guidelines for students' conduct on social media during clinical training.
At Health, social media includes websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok, BeReal, Messenger etc.
If you have any questions regarding the guidelines, please contact Health Studieservice at health.studieservice@au.dk or 87 16 74 14.
During your clinical training, the patients see you as a professional just like everyone else who works there.
AU and the host clinics expect you to behave professionally and communicate respectfully in connection with your clinical training - both towards fellow students, colleagues, patients and the workplace.
You must also follow these guidelines on social media. Please note that posts on social media can be shared, interpreted and forwarded in contexts that you may not have intended.
You should never communicate about patients on social media.
Communication about patients should only take place in relation to your clinical training or education where unauthorised persons are not allowed.
Please be aware that you also breach your duty of confidentiality even if you do not mention the name of the patient in question.
Information concerning time and place may be sufficient for the person to be identified.
As a health professional, you must protect the patients' personal data.
Please note that this also includes disclosing personal data on social media – neither in the form of images nor written information.
The latter is also true even if the patient has consented.
Personal data covers all types of information which makes it possible to identify a person such as e.g. a civil registration number, health data or photos of a recognisable person.
Therefore, personal data must regardless of type only be handled during your clinical training or in connection to your education at the educational institution.
You are allowed to record video with your telephone and use this for educational purposes.
The recordings should be deleted from your phone again and must not be communicated on social media.
The faculty of Health recommends that you avoid contact with patients and relatives on social media.
Contact should therefore exclusively take place in a professional context.
Remember it is always a good idea to keep your profile settings private rather than public.
As a student, you are not authorized to guide patients outside of the clinic or on social media. As a result, you should avoid responding to any inquiries from patients reaching out privately.
The patient has other opportunities to get in touch with the health care system, which you might refer to.