Research, compose, and type a scholarly paper based on the scenario described below, and
choose a conclusion scenario to discuss within the body of your paper. Reflect on lessons
learned in this class about technology, privacy concerns, and legal and ethical issues and
addressed each of these concepts in the paper, reflecting on the use of smartphones and social
media in healthcare. Consider the consequences of such a scenario. Do not limit your review of
the literature to the nursing discipline only because other health professionals are using the
technology, and you may need to apply critical thinking skills to its applications in this scenario.

SCENARIO
You are a nurse in the emergency room, working the Friday 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, and your evening has
been filled with the usual mix of drunken belligerent teens, wailing babies, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations, falls, fractures, and the routine, regular congestive heart
failure (CHF) patients. Your best friend is texting you from the concert that you had to miss tonight
because you were scheduled to work, and you respond to her between care of patients, jealous that she
is there and you are not. “What a jerk to torture me like this!” you think to yourself.
It is now 2 a.m., and the medics radio once again, notifying you of an incoming motor vehicle accident
victim, ETA of 5 minutes. You sigh and opt to use the restroom, rather than getting that much‐needed
cup of coffee, and prepare a room for your next patient. The medics roll in and begin to fill you in. The
patient is a 28‐year‐old male, a passenger on a bus that was involved in a crash, leaving the vehicle
overturned after rolling over an embankment. There were several fatalities among the bus passengers,
and “this victim has remained unconscious, though his vitals are currently” . . . and as you start to focus
on the patient, you take a second look. Can it be? It is! The lead singer, Jerod, from the band “Blue
Lizards,” who you have adored since you first heard his voice! The band had just left the concert that
you had missed last evening when the accident occurred. You quickly text your best friend . . . “Can you
believe?” and she responds with “Yeah, right. PROVE IT.” So you quickly snap a picture with your
smartphone, when alone with the patient, and send it to her. Can’t hurt, right? Celebrities are “public
property,” and that’s a part of their life, right? Just for good measure, you snap a few more pictures of
the unconscious singer in various stages of undress and then a shot of his home address, phone number,
and demographic information from his electronic health record. You sit your phone down on the
bedside table for a minute as you continue your assessment of the patient.
At 7:00 a.m., you drag your tired body home and straight to bed after a long but eventful night.

What happens next? Choose an ending to the scenario, and construct your paper based on those
reflections:
1. You are the following nurse on the day shift and discover the night nurse’s phone on the bedside
table. While trying to figure out to whom it belongs, you open the phone and see the photographs taken the night before. Holy moly! What a find, and nobody could trace you to the
photos.

2. You receive a call from the gossip paper the Gossip Gazette, offering you $20,000 for the photos
you have taken (courtesy of your best friend). Your identity would never be revealed, and you
desperately need a new car and are behind on some bills.

3. You go on Facebook, on your day off, and talk about the night you had at work and how you
didn’t really feel as bad having to miss the concert, because you actually got to meet Jerod in
person and even “Got his number!” You then post a picture of Jerod on Facebook and
Instagram, figuring that most of your contacts would never recognize him anyway. It’s your day
off and your personal time, so no harm, no foul, right?

4. You receive a message the next morning from a peer at work that there is a big investigation
being conducted at work due to a HIPAA violation and that it involved a celebrity who had been
admitted to the hospital. The word is that legal action is being taken against the hospital due to
some photos that were sold to the Gossip Gazette. Knowing that the photo you sent is safe with
your best friend, you reach for your smartphone, but it is nowhere to be found.