• Pradip D Patel, John L Roberts, Karen Hughes Miller, Craig Ziegler, and Michael Ostapchuk.
• Department of Pediatrics, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY, USA.
• Teach Learn Med. 2012 Jan 1;24(4):348-54.

BackgroundAs medical students become more active in online social networking (OSN), there are increasing concerns regarding violations of patient privacy and a lack of professionalism.PurposeStudents need to be mentored, but who is best suited to the task? We hypothesized that residents are closer to students in usage and attitudes toward online communication than are faculty. If so, they would be more credible as mentors.MethodsWe surveyed faculty (N = 16), 1st-year residents (N = 120), and 3rd-year medical students (N = 130) to compare attitudes about OSN and the online usage patterns.ResultsWe found residents to be more like students in usage patterns of personal electronic media and in their choice of the mentoring techniques that should be used.ConclusionResidents say they were not prepared to mentor students without additional guidance but were more confident than faculty members that they had the knowledge to do so.

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