Maybe people of a certain age should stay off social media altogether

The president of Thomas Jefferson University and dean ad interim of TJU's medical school, stepped down this past week, three months after (in the words of a Philadelphia Inquirer article) "liking controversial tweets about COVID-19 vaccines and gender reassignment surgery for children on his official presidential Twitter account." 

The tweets are quoted in the Inquirer article and are straight out of the MAGA playbook. Mark Tykocinski, 70, claimed he used the "like" function to bookmark tweets that he wanted to revisit and research. 

I don't know about that.

On every Twitter message, there's a heart icon to "like" and a flag memo to "bookmark." They are side-by-side; it's hard to see one and not also see the other, though understanding their differences requires an internet search. One crucial difference is that "likes" are public and "bookmarks" remain private. There are lots of sources for this information, including Twitter itself. 

This sounds easy, but for someone old enough to be enrolled in Medicare, it might still be confusing, just as most social media platforms are to me. I am an incredible doofus when it comes to Twitter and Facebook and absolutely hopeless trying to navigate Instagram. TikTok frightens me, so I don't even contemplate going there. In my defense, I will turn 74 in a little over a month. "Influencers" in my world suggest ways to mix a better martini. When it comes to Barbenheimer, I am more comfortable on the "heimer" part of that meme. (It it a "meme"? What, exactly, is a meme? Does something have to move or make noise to be a meme, or can a word or phrase be a meme?)

The bottom line for Tykocinski is that he either agreed with the tweets, which is baffling for a competent molecular immunologist, or he is reckless in his untutored approach to Twitter. There is a reason TJU and every other university and college has professionals who manage institutional social media.

The lesson is an important one for all of us in the health care field, from pre-med college students to med students to residents to doctors and allied health professionals. Be very sparing and very careful in what you post. "Unprofessional conduct" is a subjective judgment, and the beholder whose eyes matter is not, at the end of the day, the person who posts.