Now you want to be a midwife, you need to think about how you are presenting yourself on Facebook and other social networking sites – Twitter, Tumblr etc. When you start your course, your tutor will have a chat with the cohort (class) about what’s not acceptable for a midwife to do in public, e.g. drunken nakedness, or photos of same on Facebook.
Social networking is a big area of concern for Health Faculties right now, they are losing several students a year who make inadvisable comments on Facebook or Twitter. Basically, you can’t ever mention anything to do with work on a social network, as it’s considered to be the same thing as announcing it in public, even if your page is only visible to your family and close friends. The reason for that is to do with the fact that anybody can comment on your status and then it becomes visible to anybody else. Once you have posted something on Facebook, it is considered to be in the public domain, and the same as shouting it in the middle of a crowded street, or emailing it to everybody in the world.
Think about your privacy settings on all your social networks, make sure they are set to the most restrictive settings, Friends Only for everything, before you apply to university. One reason for that is that employers have started to Google applicants, there is nothing to stop Universities from doing the same thing. Everything you’ve ever posted, going back several years, may still be accessible online to people searching your name. From now on, be very careful what you post, and think about your future career!
Google yourself, and see what comes up. It might surprise you! Lots of teachers and academics never have a Facebook profile, because of the difficulties of maintaining the proper professional distance from their pupils in this arena. The same problems apply to midwives, if your clients ever ask to ‘friend’ you, you can’t accept. There is a boundary between providing a service to somebody and becoming friends, which it is not professional to cross.
The NMC Code and Rules and Standards are useful when thinking about these issues, and they have also recently produced advice on social networking for nurses and midwives, if you’re concerned, have a read of this:
becomingastudentmidwife 
Mar 19, 2012 @ 09:52:29
Definitely be warned, when I was a student a student midwife got a warning from the university that it had come to their attention that she was posing sexily in her uniform. Soon after we had a session on media and social networks, on the dangers.
Many in my cohort had to clean up their facebook pages, and it is also why I blog anonymously.
Mar 19, 2012 @ 16:32:27
Hi Miss Obstetrix!
I have heard similar stories, which made me quite scared of social media for a long time. I have heard of student midwives getting into trouble for apparently harmless comments about their day at work on their Facebook status. I don’t talk about anything specific that happens at work either on my blog or on other social media. But I’m constantly checking myself to make sure that what I’m writing is professional and appropriate, it’s a lot of pressure. I used to blog anonymously too, but as I’m hoping to publish an ebook soon, that won’t be an option any more!
Thanks for following! I’m off to check out your blog now…
Mar 19, 2012 @ 16:53:47
I don’t know how the ebook business works but I’m sure if you want to keep yourself anonymous to the public you can. I have a friend who is a successful published blogger who manages well by keeping anonymous, it adds to the mystery. Good luck with the ebook and I hope you will also like my blog – virgin blogger that I am!
Mar 19, 2012 @ 17:07:27
Well, I still have the option at the moment, that’s a good point! I’m going to think about that some more…
Thanks for the good wishes! Just been on your blog, and really enjoyed the first couple of posts 🙂
I’ll be back!