Nurse Firing Highlights Hazards of Social Media in Hospitals

LIZ NEPORENT abcnews.go.com One of the most dramatic scenes so far from the second season of ABC’s New York Med had nothing to do with gunshot wounds or heart transplants. It came when emergency room nurse Katie Duke was fired for posting a photo to Instagram. The photo captured a messy but empty trauma room that had been used to treat a man hit by a New York City subway train. Duke posted the photo with the caption “#Man vs 6 train.” Later that day, she was fired from her job at New York Presbyterian Hospital, she said. “I got a call at the end of my shift telling me I was being let go after seven years in the ER,” Duke told ABC News. Duke claims she was told by her supervisor that she had not breached hospital policy or violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a law known as HIPAA that protects patient privacy. “I was told I was being fired for being insensitive,” she said. Duke also claims that the photo was not even hers, but rather reposted from a doctor’s Instagram page. The doctor – who also works for the hospital – was not reprimanded, she said. New York Presbyterian declined to comment on Duke’s firing or anyone else’s involvement. to read more: abcnews.go.com