Web checklist

Doctors and patients should question themselves before searching the Web for information about each other or reaching out to connect via social networking sites:

? Why do you want to conduct this search or ?friending?? request? Be honest. Are you just curious? Checking to be sure the other person is as he or she claims to be? Are you secretly seeking a more intimate relationship? Are you a closet cyber-stalker?

? Will a search help or hurt treatment?

? Do you plan to tell the other person about the search? When? If you?re the provider, should you obtain informed consent from the patient before searching?

? What will you do with the information you find out?

? Will you assume that whatever you find is true? Will you try to verify what you find out?

JUDY FOREMAN

Source: Harvard Review of Psychiatry