A St. Louis OB-GYN might lose her job for complaining about a patient on Facebook, according to KMOV-TV.
Dr. Amy Dunbar of Mercy Hospital didn’t reveal intimate details about her pregnant patient but she did express irritation about her arriving late for appointments and failing to show up for an induction. In the comments, Dunbar added that she is forced to put up with the patient’s tardiness and isn’t cancelling the induction because she had a prior still birth.
While Dr. Dunbar’s post received dozens of likes and encouraging comments, it also enraged many people who felt the doctor shared too much information about a patient online. Some are going as far as to demand that Mercy fire the OB-GYN.
Earlier this week the hospital released a statement addressing the incident.
Mercy values the dignity and privacy of all our patients and we are very sorry that this incident occurred. While our privacy compliance staff has confirmed that this physician’s comments did not represent a breach of privacy laws, they were inappropriate and not in line with our values of respect and dignity.
The hospital also commented on demands that Dr. Dunbar lose her job:
Mercy holds its physicians and other co-workers to high standards in ensuring the protection of patient information. We cannot comment on specific disciplinary actions, but we will use this as an opportunity to reinforce our standards through additional education of our physicians and co-workers, including appropriate use of social media.
What do you think? Should Dr. Dunbar lose her job?
I don’t think she should be fired, after all she never even names the patient. But she needs to learn that griping about patients, even if unnamed, in a public forum is entirely wrong and unacceptable. Women often share close relationships with their OB-GYNs. After all an OB is given a window into the most private part of a woman’s body. What’s more these doctors are often the holders of many secrets and information that nobody else knows. They know about the abortions, the date rapes, the sexually transmitted diseases, the dysfuntional marriages. Women need to be able to trust their OB-GYNs, in some ways more than anyone else, and Dr. Dunbar clearly broke that trust. If she needs to vent about an annoying patient (and in this case the patient sounded frustrating) then she should complain to her partner or best friend but not on Facebook!
[Huffington Post and KMOV]
