Smith, J.N., Coffin, Janis. (2018, April/May 2018). Social Media, Physicians, and Points to Consider. Retrieved from http://www.podiatrym.com/pdf/2018/4/SmithCoffin418web.pdf
 
Smith et.al compiled an article looking at social media within healthcare and important points to consider when physicians of other healthcare professionals implement it into their daily practice. The main theme of the paper is based on how new healthcare models allow physicians to reach vast numer of patients to help offset the physician to patient ratio. Advances used in practices are online blogs, twitter accounts, facebook, instagram, video chat, and Portal Connect. These avenues have decreased visits to doctor's office and improved lines of communication. The main points to consider by Smith et. al are; Professionalism and Privacy, Balance and Credibility and Trust and Confidentiality. The conclusion of these paper is that with social media there can be an improved health outcome for the patient, increases awareness of medial related news, motivate patients, and inform communities of important health information.
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Surani et.al based their article on a survey that consisted of a sample size of 366 of healthcare providers to analyze their knowledge of their institutional healthcare policies, and their utilization within their daily practice. The results showed that that there was a high number of practitioners that were unaware of their institutional policies with regards to social media. There were nearly half (42.8%) that encouraged their patients to read about their disease process on social media. Surani et.al concluded that social medial practices were similar to the general public and that more physicians contributed to online forums compared to nurses.
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 Kind, T. Professional Guidelines for Social Media Use: A Starting Point.  (2015) American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. 17 (5) : 441-447. Retrieved from  http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2015/05/pdf/nlit1-1505.pdf
 Terry Kind discusses the guidelines put forth by the American Medical Association (AMA) for social media use in a healthcare setting. The benefits of social media are professional sharing, access to knowledge and public health opportunities. However, the important conclusion to take is that social media is a public setting which needs to be taken lightly when dealing with a private patient care relationship.