As you may or may not know, I am responsible for fashioning a new curriculum in digital literacy and professionalism for medical students at Baylor College of Medicine.  I’ll offer more details over the coming weeks.  Until then, I need your help.

Concerning digital communication tools and the growing public space for dialog, what the things that you believe a graduating physician should know or be able to do?  We have this well-detailed but I realized that there are people who read this blog who may be able to make some amazing contributions.  And it seems that the more I think about this, the scope of competency, and potential objectives, creep wider.

Just as examples, we want our medical students to…

• Discriminate appropriate and inappropriate types of public disclosure concerning clinical experiences.
• Understand how to handle (or not handle) patient-specific queries on public platforms.
• Recognize the importance of the digital footprint in their personal professional development.

What do you think students should know, understand or be able to do?  I can’t give you a free t-shirt or mug, but I will respond to your suggestions/comments on a level consistent with my excitement.

What have you got?  Or, more importantly, what do you think the next generation of doctors should have?

If you’d like to comment in private, email fox42 at me dot com.

[Addendum: To clarify, I’m interested in what doctors need to know about networked comms to function on graduation, not how we can use social media to teach.  That’s important, but a different question.]