BBC reports:
Patients have been criticised for taking photos and videos of doctors and then asking people online to rate how attractive they find them.
Social media posts of doctors are being shared without their consent, the British Medical Association’s annual meeting heard.
Such posts “violate” their privacy, the meeting in Brighton was told.
Delegates voted in favour of a motion condemning patients for sharing private appointment recordings online.
Read more on BBC.
It may be difficult to prosecute or condemn patients who violate their doctors’ privacy, but perhaps such patients should find themselves blacklisted somehow if they cannot be publicly named and shamed. Patients think about their trust in their doctor, but such privacy-violative actions by patients are grounds for their doctors to actually terminate relationships with them. I certainly wouldn’t blame any healthcare professional who terminated a relationship with a patient who violated their boundaries or their privacy.
I feel sorry for the UK doctors who are going through this and I hope their patients realize how inappropriate and counterproductive their behavior is.
For more details on how inappropriate some patients have been, see coverage of this matter in The Standard. I can absolutely understand why some doctors might want to actually take legal action against patients whether it’s seeking an order of protection or suing to stop them from their privacy-violative conduct.