So I joined the pre-med group at my school and I was just browsing through the members on it’s facebook group which I also recently joined. Now I have both myspace and facebook. I am careful about what I put on there. Actually I don’t really have to be careful, I don’t have any pictures of me dancing half naked on tables or doing kegstands to put on the internet…but I digress. I’m browsing through trying to find someone…anyone over the age of 25 perhaps that I can study with, make friends with…entertain myself by reading their profile while I’m bored at work…whatever…and I’m finding all these “pre-med” students and their facebook pages that are filled with all their volunteer organization links, links to the pre-med club, to the college and then albums filled with photos of drunken nights…I’m just amazed. I know this has been discussed on here before, but is this topic never brought up in the advising process?
Never underestimate the lure of exhibitionism. Enough said!
I don’t know if AdComs are Googling applicants or searching for their myspace or FB pages. It would probably take waaaaay more time than they have. I remember many years ago when SDN was new, people fretted that AdComs were reading the forums. Every once in awhile someone would hear an admissions officer “confess” to “spying” on SDN, and allegedly trying to figure out who people were from details on their profile.
Honestly, I doubt very much that AdComs have the time or inclination. So yeah, there could be amazing stuff on your FB page - stuff that us old farts might find incriminating - and no one’s going to notice… probably.
Mary
Maybe adcoms don’t, but I know employers do. There was a huge special on a news program awhile back, and all the HR people said that they actively search out their applicants on the internet, to make sure they are “responsible” etc…etc… It would not suprise me if med/law schools do this. Maybe they don’t but have an organization or some school org. that does. Just be afraid, very afraid…
As a hiring manager, I googled everyone I hired. If they had tacky pictures, tacky/tasteless comments, I did think twice. Background checks pick up criminal and credit history but give no indication of type of person.
Pictures say a 1000 words. I was even hesitant to have the picture on my blog from the American Heart Association Gala event but it is the only one I have of me not in flannel shirt, hiking boots, and jeans…
Jkp,
Your boots did not go well with your gala dress? LOL…Obviously J/k…
Your boots did not go well with your gala dress? LOL…Obviously J/k…
I'm heading to the opera house for Faust this Sunday for the matinee... have never been to the one here in St Paul. Asked what was appropriate attire for the matinee, response, "no boots" - DANG! Thankfully, I'm not wearing gala gown either; there should be a warning on it...
What about like after you’re practicing…say like adult sites, I’m stretching here and I actually just saw this on a tv show but this pediatrician was on an adult site and the mother didn’t want him treating her son because she had seen him on there…how does one deal with that? I mean on one hand a doctor has the right to their secret life of slap n tickle fetish if that what blows their hair back right? But on the other hand parents really don’t want to know that the doctor treating their precious little children is being tied to the bedposts at night either?? It’s an interesting situation. Do they teach you how to deal with these things? Seperating your personal and professional identities?
Ha, I saw that episode. It was rather funny being the mother would have never known about it if she wasn’t frequenting the same exact fetish site. Oh the hypocricy. It’s kind of like being a pastor…oh wait, that’s my baggage hehe. But wow the expectations of perfection were high then as I suspect they are in the medical field.
From my perspective:
There IS a decorum and an expectation that med students, pre-med students, residents and physicians act in accordance to professional standards IN and OUT of the clinic/hospital setting. Some schools, Creighton, MN, etc firmly STATE this in the letter they demand you sign.
I would not want a doctor who was a known philanderer touching my body or that of my son’s. The whole “yuck” factor kicks in. Same way I don’t want the President of the United States appearing at a Las Vegas strip show.