Are social networks blurring the boundaries between professional and personal lives?

Facebook, Twitter, Yammer and the Internet overall is a game changer. The rulebook of how we practice medicine has changed.

The NY times posted an article in which a young trainee describes caring for a dying patient in the ICU who reached out to her thru Facebook. She describes how she struggled with this and describes his eventual death.

I find that people I meet in a clinical setting as well as in a professional setting have typically “googled” me before they step foot into my office. Maybe this is a “silicon valley neurosis”… …maybe it is a whole new world in that we live in a fish bowl. I am curious to know whether others have had patients who “poked” you on Facebook? How are you dealing with the blurring boundaries between your prefessional and personal lives (assuming that you have time for a personal life, that is 🙂