You work as a nurse at Lake Side Hospital in the emergency department. When you arrive at work, everyone was talking during shift change about a hostage situation happening less than 1 mile from the hospital. For over 12 hours, a man was holding eight hostages at gunpoint, including two small children. Later that shift, 5 trauma victims come in at once causing chaos in the ED. You are assigned to treat a man who was shot in the left shoulder and abdomen. He has no identification on him nor cell phone and during the chaos you don’t get much of his story besides his medical situation. Your trauma team treats, stabilizes him, and sends him to surgery. At change of shift, you hear fellow nurses talking about how that man you worked on was the hostage taker. They mention that his surgery went well.

You go home and start reading the local news. You find out that four hostages, including the two small children, died last night. You read as much as you can about the victims and feel your rage growing. You cannot believe that you helped save a monster like this.

Before going to bed, you post a link to the news article about the situation on Facebook with a comment that says, “I can’t believe I took care of this monster today. I hope he rots in prison. RIP little angels.” In the morning, you wake up and realize that post was a bad idea. You quickly delete it, and you notice no one has liked it or commented on it. You are so thankful that you only shared it with several close nurse colleagues who work at Lake Side Hospital. As you are getting ready for work, your manager texts you and asks you if you can come into work early.

When you arrive at work, your boss has a screenshot of your post. She tells you that you will not be working that day and the hospital has placed you on administrative leave while the investigation occurs. You try to explain to her that you just got so mad that this monster survived, and those two small children died, and you only posted it to a select group of fellow nurse friends who work in the hospital. You also tell her that you have deleted the post – so everything is okay now.

1. Do you think this suspension and investigation are justified? Why or why not? Please support your argument with the assigned readings and at least one scholarly article.

1. As the nurse manager of the ED, you decide to create a presentation for other staff members about using social media professionally. Utilizing the assigned readings and at least one more scholarly article, identify three key points you would make during the presentation. Please be specific.

1. Reflect on your social media usage. Based on the readings this week, are there any changes you might make to your own personal use? Why or why not?